personnel business plan example

How Do You Draft the Personnel Section of the Business Plan? The Personnel Section of a Business Plan Explained.

One of the key sections of a Business Plan is the section that describes the plan to grow or scale the business. This often involves hiring staff and staff often represent the single largest ongoing expense that a company will have. As such, it is important to plan exactly who will be hired, how much they will be paid and when staff will join the team.

What Should a Personnel Plan Look Like?

The personnel section of a Business Plan should contain the following components.

Job Descriptions – The job descriptions should provide the reader with enough detail so that they understand the job function of prospective hires
Organizational Chart – An organizational chart show who will work for who and allows a reader to get an overview of the overall management and staffing structure of the company.
Type of Hire – Staff can either be salaried employees or independent contractors. It is important to distinguish between these two types of workers for tax and other labor compliance issues.
Salary Amount – Details of either yearly or hourly pay should be included.
Salary Assumptions – common assumptions include an estimate of raises over time (eg. 5%) and a burden rate assigned to cover company benefits like health insurance (eg. 20% of salary costs)
When Hires Will Take Place – Staff are usually hired over a period of time and staggered. As such, it is helpful to include detail surrounding when a particular employee will start. If you will have temporary staff of contractors, you should also specify when the employment will end.

What Do the Numbers Look Like?

The sample chart below is an example of the financial section of a business plan. It is for illustrative purposes only and each plan is unique and requires tailoring to meet the specific needs of the company.

	FY2015	FY2016	FY2017	FY2018	FY2019
Coder	$0	$48,000	$50,400	$52,920	$55,572
Sales – 2 Sales Staff	$0	$48,000	$50,400	$52,920	$55,566
Sales Manager	$0	$0	$24,000	$25,200	$26,460
Marketing Head	$0	$0	$0	$24,000	$25,200
Distribution Manager	$0	$0	$0	$0	$24,000
Founder 1 – Founder Founder	$91,667	$105,000	$110,250	$115,763	$121,551
Founder 2	$0	$100,000	$105,000	$110,250	$115,763
Founder 3	$0	$100,000	$105,000	$110,250	$115,763
Total	$91,667	$401,000	$445,050	$491,303	$539,875

What Should the Explanation of a Personnel Plan Look Like?

The detail below is a summary of some of the possible explanation that could be included in a Personnel Plan for the above data. The description is an excerpt of possible language that could be used.

The company will start out utilizing the three founders and salaries have been allocated for each founder at $100,000 per year. Founder 1 will start taking a salary in FY2015 while the other two founders will start taking a salary in FY2016. Founders will also take dividends as issued by the Board of Directors.

The budget contemplates hiring 2 employees in the sales area in fiscal 2016 and one software engineer . Until that time, one of the founders who specializes in application development (Hellen Bussiere), will work on developing the tech side of the business. In addition, the plan includes hiring 1 sales person a year after that. Sales people will make approx.. $25,000 per year. In year 4, the application will be completed and we will hire a marketing head to promote the product. The marketing head will make $24,000 a year and will be a part time position. In year 5, a distribution manager will be hired and he/she will also be part time and make $24,000 per year.

Full job descriptions are included in Section A.2 of the plan.

The total number of employees at the end of year 5 is 9 people (including the founders). This is a modest estimate and may increase significantly if more users sign up.

All salaries include a raise estimated at 5% per year. 20% of salary costs have been included for benefits such as health care and 401K matching.

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How to Create an Investor-Ready Personnel Plan and Forecast Employee Costs

Posted march 22, 2021 by noah parsons.

A personnel plan is a critical part of your business plan and financial forecast . In addition to helping you budget for current and future employees, your personnel plan enables you to think through who you should hire and when you should hire them.

If you’re pitching to angel investors or venture capitalists for funding, they will want to see why your team is uniquely suited to grow and scale your business, as well as your hiring plan.

Investors will want to know:

What positions do you need to fill?
When you plan on filling them?
How much it’s going to cost to build the team you need??

What to include in the personnel section of your business plan

For many startups and small businesses, the people who do the work—your team—are both the most costly and most valuable asset. It makes sense that hiring the right person at the right time can have a significant impact on your ability to meet your company’s milestones and goals , not to mention your cash flow .

Thinking strategically about human resources — when to add positions, compensation levels, and whether to hire full-time or on a contract basis are all pieces of a healthy personnel plan.

So, whether you’re seeking investment or not, building a personnel plan and forecast is an essential part of business planning and strategic planning for the long-term viability of your company. Let’s dive right in and look at the five key steps to build an investor-ready personnel plan.

1. Describe your team

In the “team” section of your business plan, you will typically include an overview of the key positions in your company and the background of the people who will be in those critical roles. Usually, you’ll highlight each of the management positions in your company and then speak more generally about other departments and teams.

You don’t need to include full resumes for each team member—a quick summary of why each person is qualified to do the job is enough. Describe each person’s skills and experience and what they will be doing for the company.

Emphasize your team’s strengths. How do they make your team stronger? What specific expertise and experience do they have in your (or a related) industry? Assuming your market research identified a great opportunity, why are you the right team to capitalize on it?

For potential investors, this section helps qualify why each team member is necessary for the success of the business. It acts as a justification for their salary and equity share if they are part owners of the company.

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2. Describe your organizational structure

The organizational structure of your company is frequently represented as an “org chart” that shows who reports to whom and who is responsible for what.

You don’t have to create a visual org chart, though—describing your organization in the text is just fine. Just make sure to show that you have a clear structure for your company.

Is authority adequately distributed among the team? Do you have the resources to get everything done that you need to grow your company?

You’ll also want to mention the various teams your company is going to have in the future. These might include sales, customer service, product development, marketing, manufacturing, and so on.

You don’t need to plan on hiring all of these people right away. Think of this section as an outline of what you plan to do in the future with your company.

3. Explain the gaps

It’s alright to have gaps on your team, especially if you’re a startup. You may not have identified all the “right” team members yet, or you may not have the funds available yet to hire for essential roles . That’s okay.

The key is to know that you do have gaps on your team—this is how you figure out who you need to hire and when you need to hire them. Also, it’s much better to define and identify weaknesses in your team than to pretend that you have all the key roles that you need. In your business plan , explain where your organization is weak and what your plans are to correct the problem as you grow.

It might be tempting to hide your potential weaknesses from investors, but they’ll see through that right away. It’s much better to be open and honest about where you have management gaps and your plans to solve those problems. You want them to know you have identified and made plans to mitigate risks .

You also need to keep in mind that employees might wear a lot of hats in the early days of a company, but that specialization will happen as the company grows.

For example, initially, the CEO might also be the VP of Sales. But, eventually, the VP of Sales role should be filled by a specialist to take on that responsibility. Include these types of changes in your personnel plan to explain to investors that you understand how your company is going to grow and scale.

4. List your advisors, consultants, and board members

For some companies, external advisors, board members , and even consultants can play a crucial role in setting business strategy. These people might even fill key positions temporarily as your company grows. If this is the case, you’ll want to list these people in your business plan. Like your management team, provide a brief background on each principal advisor that explains the value they provide.

If your advisors don’t hold key roles or are not critical to your success, you don’t necessarily have to list them. But, do list anyone that is adding substantial value to the company by providing advice, connections, or operational expertise.

5. Forecast your personnel costs

Most business plans should include a personnel table to forecast the expense of your employees. Here are the expenses you’ll need to be aware of when forecasting.

Direct and indirect labor expenses

You’ll want to include both direct expenses , which usually comprise salaries, as well as indirect expenses which include:

Paid time off
Healthcare and insurance
Payroll costs

As well as any other costs you incur for each employee beyond their salary. Here’s an example of what a personnel forecast can look like using LivePlan .

See how to forecast your personnel costs using LivePlan

Burden rate and employee-related expenses

There are different names for the indirect expenses of personnel. Still, I like to call it “burden rate” or “employee-related expenses,” which is an expense over and above the direct wages and salaries. These expenses typically include payroll taxes, worker’s compensation insurance, health insurance, and other benefits and taxes.

For business planning purposes, don’t stress about coming up with the exact figure for the burden rate. Instead, estimate it using a percentage of total monthly salaries. Somewhere between 15 percent and 25 percent usually makes sense, but it depends on what kind of benefits you plan on offering.

In your personnel plan, you can list both individual people as well as groups of people. You’ll probably want to list out key people and other highly paid employees, but group together other departments or groups of people. For example, you might list out your management team, but then group together departments like Marketing, Customer Service, and Manufacturing.

Then, add in your personnel burden to cover benefits and insurance. In the example personnel table above, this is called “Employee-Related Expenses.”

You’ll then take the total number of your salaries plus personnel burden and include this in your profit and loss forecast as an expense. Suppose you’re using LivePlan to build your personnel forecast. In that case, this how-to article on entering personnel shows where you’ll see personnel costs appear on your cash flow statement, profit and loss (income statement), and your balance sheet.

Do you need a personnel plan if you have no employees?

If you are a sole proprietor and don’t have employees, you should still include your own salary as part of the business plan. Make sure to include your salary as an expense in your Profit & Loss Statement . Even if you, the business owner, don’t take the salary, so you can keep the cash in your business, you’ll want to record what you should have been paid.

In the case of a sole proprietor, you probably don’t need a full table for the personnel plan, like in the example above. But, when you do start planning to hire a team, you should use the format I’ve described here.

Personnel planning is a valuable part of the business planning process because it forces you to think about what needs to get done in your business and who’s going to do it. Take the time to work through this part of your financial forecast, and you’ll have a much better sense of what it’s going to take to make your business successful.

*Editors Note: This article was initially written in 2019 and updated for 2021.

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How to Create a Personnel Plan for Investors

What is a personnel plan?

A personnel plan is a document that outlines an organization’s staffing needs, goals, and strategies for managing its workforce. Whether taken upon yourself or delegated to a trusted manager, this is essential for business.

It is a key component of human resource management and provides a roadmap for the recruitment, selection, training, development, retention, and management of employees.

A personnel plan is critical within the business plan you would have created as a start-up or entrepreneur. It will help you in your financial forecasting, anticipating the right times to hire and expand.

What to include in the personnel section of your business plan

The personnel section of a business plan should include information about the management team and staff that will be involved in operating the business. The people who do the work are the most important asset, which of course comes with a cost. Understanding when to hire, when to think about human resources, and when to grow your business at the right time can be enormously important in meeting business objectives, setting yourself up for success with great personal benchmarks.

Building out a personnel plan within your business plan is going to be essential in planning for the long term success of your business. Forecasting this data can be the best way to ensure longevity.

Who is your management team?

This should include a brief introduction to the key members of the management team, including their backgrounds, experience, and relevant skills. It’s important to highlight their qualifications and how they will contribute to the success of the business.

This can be brief and doesn’t require a full resume for each member of the team. A simple explanation detailing qualifications and relevant experience applicable within the company is all that’s required.

What is the organizational structure?

This section should provide an overview of the organizational structure of the company, including who will be in charge of each department or functional area, as well as any outside consultants or advisors who will be involved.

In line with forecasting, you will want to illustrate the future of your company and who will be included. As you develop, you can anticipate your team growing from a just few employees into staff across multiple sectors, such as customer service, marketing, and support.

What are your staffing needs?

Outline the staffing needs of the business, including the number and types of employees needed to run the business successfully. This should also include the qualifications and skills required for each position.

Here you can identify the weaknesses and risks across your team, ensuring that you have a capable understanding of the roles and responsibilities that are important to the business in the future – though they may not be in place right now. Investors are quick to highlight “perfect” personnel plans, so you will want to embrace that you have identified risks in staffing.

As an example, your head of customer support may also be your head of sales, but in time these two roles will need to be separated.

What will recruitment and training look like?

This section should detail how the company plans to recruit and train employees, including any training programs or on-the-job training that will be provided.

What will the compensations and benefits be?

Outline the compensation and benefits packages that will be offered to employees, including salaries, bonuses, health benefits, retirement plans, and any other perks or incentives.

Outline the Human Resources policies

Detail the company’s policies on issues such as employee performance reviews , disciplinary procedures, and termination policies.

What to include in the personnel section of your business plan

Does a business plan need personnel planning if I have no staff?

Even if you don’t have any employees right now, having a personnel plan is beneficial for your business in the long term.

Without a personnel plan, you may find it challenging to scale your business or adapt to changes in your industry or market. For example, if you suddenly need to hire someone to fill a critical role, you may not know where to start or what qualifications you should look for.

Creating a personnel plan can also help you to clarify your business goals and objectives. By determining the roles and responsibilities required to meet those goals, you can better prioritize and focus on the essential tasks that need to be done.

Therefore, even if you don’t have any employees currently, it’s still a good idea to develop a personnel plan to help you prepare for future growth and ensure that you have the right team in place to support your business objectives.

Is there an easy way to forecast a personnel plan?

Personnel planning is a long process as it requires dedicated thought as to what needs to happen in your business and where you want to take it. Typically, this require a lengthy process of spreadsheets and equations to figure out exactly who needs to be working with you, and at what cost.

Business planning software can ensure that this part of your business plan, alongside other key components, is created with ease – simply needing a few data entries to be entered throughout the software.

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Create a Personal Business Plan That You'll Really Use Develop a customized tool that will serve to focus you on your most important objectives. Write it in user-friendly prose so you'll check it weekly.

By Marty Fukuda Oct 7, 2014

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Every successful business leader I've encountered is in some way a prolific goal setter. For this reason, the single most important piece of advice I give any aspiring entrepreneur or business professional is to figure out exactly what you want, document it on paper and then attack it every day.

A personal business plan is something that I develop each year to help me put my own advice into action. Creating a plan can clarify your objectives for the coming year but don't just shove it in drawer. It is something that should become weekly, if not daily, reading material.

Related: Why Business Leaders Must Set a Personal Mission

1. Start with a simple brainstorming list.

Break down your role in the company into small parts and be sure it's comprehensive. This could mean taking each department that you oversee or are involved in, and breaking it down into further segments. For instance, for my company's graphic-design department, I would create separate objectives for its leadership development, equipment and software needs, anticipated hiring, the continued education plan and efficiency.

2. Prioritize objectives.

Your brainstorming list probably contains an overwhelming number of potential starting points. The key is narrowing them down into a manageable and realistic number of goals. Since you'll review the finished personal business plan often, don't write a novel.

I made the mistake of developing a massive 100-page personal business plan that I never looked at. The very thought of reviewing it was scary. A user-friendly one- to two-page document will do the trick.

Take your brainstorming list and organize it according to the biggest potential impact. You'll also have some must-dos (if not tackled business will fall apart). Then you'll have some items that aren't necessary or don't require much of your focus and perhaps can be delegated.

My company's CEO, Duane Hixon, does a wonderful job of narrowing down his list into what he refers to as his "rocks." These are the biggest areas of impact, the areas to which a person should offer most of his or her attention. These will make up the heart of the personal business plan.

Related: How to Build a Business Plan For Your Personal Brand

3. Be specific.

Once you've narrowed things down to a handful of rocks, be sure the plan includes specifics that will allow you to measure and track progress. For this year's plan, one of my rocks was maintaining company culture while building the team. Obviously, this is a broad, difficult-to-measure objective. For my plan, I developed a strategy for accomplishing the mission by including more details such as creating a company culture slide show and a plan for both current employees and new hires.

4. Set challenges but be realistic.

A goal that doesn't take much effort to accomplish isn't really a goal. Setting an objective that has a slim chance of realization, however, amounts to little more than a hope and can leave you feeling discouraged. Aim for a perfect balance between the two -- something that stretches you but doesn't break you.

Related: Write a Winning Business Plan With These 8 Key Elements

5. Set deadlines.

The beautiful thing about your personal business plan is that it's yours. You don't have to wait until the start of a new year to create one. While I create a plan annually, that doesn't mean that each objective has a deadline that's one year out. Set a deadline no matter what it is to keep you focused and provide a call to action (as opposed to adopting an open-ended objective).

6. Share the plan.

I recommend that you show your plan to a colleage whom you respect. Ask for feedback. This individual may think of an angle you have not. Equally important, this person will hold you accountable. It's a lot tougher to hit the eject button on a plan after you've shared it with someone you respect. And everyone can use a cheerleader in the workplace from time to time.

I personally love it when an employee shares a plan with me. It shows initiative and forward thinking. There are few things more impressive than when an employee has clear-cut objectives and works hard to meet them.

7. Revisit the plan weekly.

Creating the plan is just the first step. Put the plan in a prominent spot where you're going to remember to review it or place reminders in your calendar.If you've got a great plan, it can and will inspire you every time you see it.

Related: Your Mission Statement May Be Utterly Useless or a Gold Mine

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The Secrets of a Great Personnel Plan

Investing in human resources (HR) is a key element of healthy personnel planning and strategy. A hallmark of effective leadership is efficient HR which means hiring employees in a cost-effective manner and mostly when needed. Your business plan should always include an informative and up-to-date personnel plan section to provide direction for the company and help entrepreneurs stay focused.

At the heart of every business owner is the desire to excel. The best way to excel is to define your plans and proceed with purpose. Your business plan comprises a business description , a competition analysis, a marketing plan, a personnel section, the HR section and key financial information.

The personnel plan is designed to help company owners put their plans into action. It helps to clarify objectives for the current and forthcoming year. Thus, a good understanding of personnel plan and how to implement it in your business is vital.

What is a personnel plan?

A personnel plan is a vital part of every company plan and financial forecast, which aids future and current budgeting and defines the type of employee to hire and when to hire such employees.

When you are seeking funding, venture capitalists and angel investors will want a breakdown of your team. Who are they? What talents and skills do they bring to the table? What is your hiring plan for the first year, second year, and so on? How will your team drive business growth and success?

All this information will include the positions you will need employees for, the period in which the management intends to fill the plan, and the financial implications of the implementation of the plan. Just as you would assess if your business is financially feasible , you’ll need to apply this same sentiment when hiring employees.

The personnel plan represents a consolidated strategy for hiring the best people for all company positions, while keeping an eye on future expansion.

Michael E. Gerber, the author of The E-Myth Revisited, posited that an effective personnel plan designed as an efficient workplace game will help employers prime employees for organizational goals while creating job satisfaction. This means that an effective hiring process is vital to an efficient process of personnel planning.

The majority of employers find personnel planning difficult especially those whose staff work in shifts. Organizational challenges like these can easily be taken care of with TimeTrack Duty Roster which helps employers create a suitable overview of their workforce and personalize shifts according to any number of criteria, including their location and skills.

Features of the TimeTrack Duty Roster

Key elements of a personnel plan

Each company’s needs may differ, but in general, these are common elements that should form part of every personnel plan.

Job description

Clearly explained requirements of the various job functions. Use easy-to-understand language and phrases.

Organizational chart and type of hiring

The chart of the organization should show who works for whom and provide a good overview of the overall management and employee structure of the company.
The plan should be clear on whether employees are independent contractors or receive salaries. This is essential for labor compliance issues and the workers’ tax.

Remuneration (salary amount and assumptions)

Details of hourly or yearly payments are defined, including relevant assumptions that comprise estimates of salary increases over time. You also need to account for company benefits, including health insurance. This may be a percentage of salary costs employers pay to staff.

Time of recruitment

The hiring of employees is often done over time and staggered. Thus, your plan must include details about when an employee will start and the end date for temporary staff.

Incorporate key personnel into the business plan

Employees are the most valuable assets any company can have. This means that hiring the right person should always be a key priority for every company. Your staff will have a significant impact on revenue, customer experience/satisfaction and the success of the company.

Incorporating the personnel section into your business plan is an important part of strategic planning for long-term viability. The information below serves as guide on how to implement a personnel plan in your business.

Team dynamics

This presents an overview of all the key positions in your business and the backgrounds of staff in their critical roles and departments. Add the total number of staff and their experiences. Emphasize the strengths of individuals and how to upskill where necessary. A great team is typically the fulcrum of business success because they have the responsibility of and possess the ability to translate policies into business success.

Organizational structure

The structure of your company is represented in the company’s organizational chart, which shows the hierarchy of duties and management. Is authority finely distributed and are the various company teams properly mentioned? This includes customer service, product development, marketing, manufacturing and sales.

When planning the company’s organizational details, you will need a strategy to manage absences and leave. TimeTrack Leave Management feature helps you to finetune these details so you can easily (and quickly!) oversee employee absences, vacation time and keep track of working hours for compliance management.

TimeTrack Leave Management

Gaps and stumbling blocks

While it may be difficult to identify gaps in your team, chances are that if you look closely, you will observe a section of your company in need of quality talent. You need to figure out how to fill this gap. Don’t hide the weakness of your team from potential investors. Always remember that specialization will evolve as the company grows.

Where advisors, board members and consultants are applicable to your company, list them. Where they will fill key positions as the business grows, you need to list them and provide background on the value they provide.

The fine print

Every personnel plan needs to include a section addressing employment benefits , rights and conditions, especially for managers. Design your company’s management personnel plan and include a table of staff expenses, including both direct and indirect labor expenses, a burden rate and employee-related expenses, while adding payroll tax, workers’ compensation, salaries and health insurance.

Checklist for personnel planning

Personnel improvement

Improving conditions for personnel involve the identification of gaps, developing and implementing action plans and taking follow-up actions. Managers should develop a performance improvement plan before taking disciplinary action against employees.

Identify skills or performance gaps

A gap analysis is designed to help you identify potential and current issues and is an essential part of the personnel process. Incorporate characteristics of human resource planning into your business planning.

Provide proof of a skills gap or underperformance of the workforce using a consistent format across all employment cadres. Design your format, including employee information and a description of performance discrepancies using expected and actual performance criteria.

Have a face-to-face meeting with your employees to share observed issues or concerns and gain insights into causal factors of underperformance. Use your documentation to share insights on performance challenges. Let the affected employees know they have committed specific policy infractions. Focus only on the outcomes of behaviors to help affected staff understand how their behaviors affect company success.

Develop action plans

Establish specific and measurable improvement goals for your workforce. Avoid generalizations and focus on key goals. Setting bit-sized goals is an effective way of working while monitoring task on time .

Provide detailed resources, including advanced tools that can help employees improve. This also means providing the management with essential tools that will help with the efficient oversight of the workforce.

Create a timeline for achieving performance improvement goals. This will help keep the staff on track towards achieving expectations. Don’t forget to identify metrics for measuring progress. Be specific about what you want employees to achieve and define the intended consequences in the event of failure to complete performance improvement plan. Be specific about actions you will take whether or not targets are met.

Schedule regular appointments to review the performance improvement plan with your employees and implement their feedback.

Incorporating a personnel plan into your business strategy is a key factor for efficient planning. To maximize the opportunity presented by personnel planning, use any of the effective and reliable TimeTrack planning and absence management software tools.

I am a researcher, writer, and self-published author. Over the last 9 years, I have dedicated my time to delivering unique content to startups and non-governmental organizations and have covered several topics, including wellness, technology, and entrepreneurship. I am now passionate about how time efficiency affects productivity, business performance, and profitability.

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How to Write the Management Team Section of a Business Plan + Examples

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Over the last 20+ years, we’ve written business plans for over 4,000 companies and hundreds of thousands of others have used the best business plan template and our other business planning materials.

From this vast experience, we’ve gained valuable insights on how to write a business plan effectively , specifically in the management section.

What is a Management Team Business Plan?

A management team business plan is a section in a comprehensive business plan that introduces and highlights the key members of the company’s management team. This part provides essential details about the individuals responsible for leading and running the business, including their backgrounds, skills, and experience.

It’s crucial for potential investors and stakeholders to evaluate the management team’s competence and qualifications, as a strong team can instill confidence in the company’s ability to succeed.

Why is the Management Team Section of a Business Plan Important?

Your management team plan has 3 goals:

To prove to you that you have the right team to execute on the opportunity you have defined, and if not, to identify who you must hire to round out your current team
To convince lenders and investors (e.g., angel investors, venture capitalists) to fund your company (if needed)
To document how your Board (if applicable) can best help your team succeed

What to Include in Your Management Team Section

There are two key elements to include in your management team business plan as follows:

Management Team Members

For each key member of your team, document their name, title, and background.

Their backgrounds are most important in telling you and investors they are qualified to execute. Describe what positions each member has held in the past and what they accomplished in those positions. For example, if your VP of Sales was formerly the VP of Sales for another company in which they grew sales from zero to $10 million, that would be an important and compelling accomplishment to document.

Importantly, try to relate your team members’ past job experience with what you need them to accomplish at your company. For example, if a former high school principal was on your team, you could state that their vast experience working with both teenagers and their parents will help them succeed in their current position (particularly if the current position required them to work with both customer segments).

This is true for a management team for a small business, a medium-sized or large business.

Management Team Gaps

In this section, detail if your management team currently has any gaps or missing individuals. Not having a complete team at the time you develop your business plan. But, you must show your plan to complete your team.

As such, describe what positions are missing and who will fill the positions. For example, if you know you need to hire a VP of Marketing, state this. Further, state the job description of this person. For example, you might say that this hire will have 10 years of experience managing a marketing team, establishing new accounts, working with social media marketing, have startup experience, etc.

To give you a “checklist” of the employees you might want to include in your Management Team Members and/or Gaps sections, below are the most common management titles at a growing startup (note that many are specific to tech startups):

Founder, CEO, and/or President
Chief Operating Officer
Chief Financial Officer
VP of Sales
VP of Marketing
VP of Web Development and/or Engineering
UX Designer/Manager
Product Manager
Digital Marketing Manager
Business Development Manager
Account Management/Customer Service Manager
Sales Managers/Sales Staff
Board Members

If you have a Board of Directors or Board of Advisors, you would include the bios of the members of your board in this section.

A Board of Directors is a paid group of individuals who help guide your company. Typically startups do not have such a board until they raise VC funding.

If your company is not at this stage, consider forming a Board of Advisors. Such a board is ideal particularly if your team is missing expertise and/or experience in certain areas. An advisory board includes 2 to 8 individuals who act as mentors to your business. Usually, you meet with them monthly or quarterly and they help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. You typically do not pay advisory board members with cash, but offering them options in your company is a best practice as it allows you to attract better board members and better motivate them.

Management Team Business Plan Example

Below are examples of how to include your management section in your business plan.

Key Team Members

Jim Smith, Founder & CEO

Jim has 15 years of experience in online software development, having co-founded two previous successful online businesses. His first company specialized in developing workflow automation software for government agencies and was sold to a public company in 2003. Jim’s second company developed a mobile app for parents to manage their children’s activities, which was sold to a large public company in 2014. Jim has a B.S. in computer science from MIT and an M.B.A from the University of Chicago

Bill Jones, COO

Bill has 20 years of sales and business development experience from working with several startups that he helped grow into large businesses. He has a B.S. in mechanical engineering from M.I.T., where he also played Division I lacrosse for four years.

We currently have no gaps in our management team, but we plan to expand our team by hiring a Vice President of Marketing to be responsible for all digital marketing efforts.

Vance Williamson, Founder & CEO

Prior to founding GoDoIt, Vance was the CIO of a major corporation with more than 100 retail locations. He oversaw all IT initiatives including software development, sales technology, mobile apps for customers and employees, security systems, customer databases/CRM platforms, etc. He has a B.S in computer science and an MBA in operations management from UCLA.

We currently have two gaps in our Management Team:

A VP of Sales with 10 years of experience managing sales teams, overseeing sales processes, working with manufacturers, establishing new accounts, working with digital marketing/advertising agencies to build brand awareness, etc.

In addition, we need to hire a VP of Marketing with experience creating online marketing campaigns that attract new customers to our site.

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Other Resources for Writing Your Business Plan

How to Write an Executive Summary
How to Expertly Write the Company Description in Your Business Plan
How to Write the Market Analysis Section of a Business Plan
The Customer Analysis Section of Your Business Plan
Completing the Competitive Analysis Section of Your Business Plan
Financial Assumptions and Your Business Plan
How to Create Financial Projections for Your Business Plan
Everything You Need to Know about the Business Plan Appendix
Business Plan Conclusion: Summary & Recap

How To Write the Management Section of a Business Plan

Susan Ward wrote about small businesses for The Balance for 18 years. She has run an IT consulting firm and designed and presented courses on how to promote small businesses.

Ownership Structure

Internal management team, external management resources, human resources, frequently asked questions (faqs).

When developing a business plan , the 'management section' describes your management team, staff, resources, and how your business ownership is structured. This section should not only describe who's on your management team but how each person's skill set will contribute to your bottom line. In this article, we will detail exactly how to compose and best highlight your management team.

Key Takeaways

The management section of a business plan helps show how your management team and company are structured.
The first section shows the ownership structure, which might be a sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation.
The internal management section shows the department heads, including sales, marketing, administration, and production.
The external management resources help back up your internal management and include an advisory board and consultants.
The human resources section contains staffing requirements—part-time or full-time—skills needed for employees and the costs.

This section outlines the legal structure of your business. It may only be a single sentence if your business is a sole proprietorship. If your business is a partnership or a corporation, it can be longer. You want to be sure you explain who holds what percentage of ownership in the company.

The internal management section should describe the business management categories relevant to your business, identify who will have responsibility for each category, and then include a short profile highlighting each person's skills.

The primary business categories of sales, marketing , administration, and production usually work for many small businesses. If your business has employees, you will also need a human resources section. You may also find that your company needs additional management categories to fit your unique circumstances.

It's not necessary to have a different person in charge of each category; some key management people often fill more than one role. Identify the key managers in your business and explain what functions and experience each team member will serve. You may wish to present this as an organizational chart in your business plan, although the list format is also appropriate.

Along with this section, you should include the complete resumés of each management team member (including your own). Follow this with an explanation of how each member will be compensated and their benefits package, and describe any profit-sharing plans that may apply.

If there are any contracts that relate directly to your management team members, such as work contracts or non-competition agreements, you should include them in an Appendix to your business plan.

While external management resources are often overlooked when writing a business plan , using these resources effectively can make the difference between the success or failure of your managers. Think of these external resources as your internal management team's backup. They give your business credibility and an additional pool of expertise.

Advisory Board

An Advisory Board can increase consumer and investor confidence, attract talented employees by showing a commitment to company growth and bring a diversity of contributions. If you choose to have an Advisory Board , list all the board members in this section, and include a bio and all relevant specializations. If you choose your board members carefully, the group can compensate for the niche forms of expertise that your internal managers lack.

When selecting your board members, look for people who are genuinely interested in seeing your business do well and have the patience and time to provide sound advice.

Recently retired executives or managers, other successful entrepreneurs, and/or vendors would be good choices for an Advisory Board.

Professional Services

Professional Services should also be highlighted in the external management resources section. Describe all the external professional advisors that your business will use, such as accountants, bankers, lawyers, IT consultants, business consultants, and/or business coaches. These professionals provide a web of advice and support outside your internal management team that can be invaluable in making management decisions and your new business a success .

The last point you should address in the management section of your business plan is your human resources needs. The trick to writing about human resources is to be specific. To simply write, "We'll need more people once we get up and running," isn't sufficient. Follow this list:

Detail how many employees your business will need at each stage and what they will cost.
Describe exactly how your business's human resources needs can be met. Will it be best to have employees, or should you operate with contract workers or freelancers ? Do you need full-time or part-time staff or a mix of both?
Outline your staffing requirements, including a description of the specific skills that the people working for you will need to possess.
Calculate your labor costs. Decide the number of employees you will need and how many customers each employee can serve. For example, if it takes one employee to serve 150 customers, and you forecast 1,500 customers in your first year, your business will need 10 employees.
Determine how much each employee will receive and total the salary cost for all your employees.
Add to this the cost of Workers' Compensation Insurance (mandatory for most businesses) and the cost of any other employee benefits, such as company-sponsored medical and dental plans.

After you've listed the points above, describe how you will find the staff your business needs and how you will train them. Your description of staff recruitment should explain whether or not sufficient local labor is available and how you will recruit staff.

When you're writing about staff training, you'll want to include as many specifics as possible. What specific training will your staff undergo? What ongoing training opportunities will you provide your employees?

Even if the plan for your business is to start as a sole proprietorship, you should include a section on potential human resources demands as a way to demonstrate that you've thought about the staffing your business may require as it grows.

Business plans are about the future and the hypothetical challenges and successes that await. It's worth visualizing and documenting the details of your business so that the materials and network around your dream can begin to take shape.

What is the management section of a business plan?

The 'management section' describes your management team, staff, resources, and how your business ownership is structured.

What are the 5 sections of a business plan?

A business plan provides a road map showing your company's goals and how you'll achieve them. The five sections of a business plan are as follows:

The market analysis outlines the demand for your product or service.
The competitive analysis section shows your competition's strengths and weaknesses and your strategy for gaining market share.
The management plan outlines your ownership structure, the management team, and staffing requirements.
The operating plan details your business location and the facilities, equipment, and supplies needed to operate.
The financial plan shows the map to financial success and the sources of funding, such as bank loans or investors.

SCORE. " Why Small Businesses Should Consider Workers’ Comp Insurance ."

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7 Business Plan Examples to Inspire Your Own (2024)

Need support creating your business plan? Check out these business plan examples for inspiration.

Any aspiring entrepreneur researching how to start a business will likely be advised to write a business plan. But few resources provide business plan examples to really guide you through writing one of your own.

Here are some real-world and illustrative business plan examples to help you craft your business plan .

7 business plan examples: section by section

The business plan examples in this article follow this template:

Executive summary. An introductory overview of your business.
Company description. A more in-depth and detailed description of your business and why it exists.
Market analysis. Research-based information about the industry and your target market.
Products and services. What you plan to offer in exchange for money.
Marketing plan. The promotional strategy to introduce your business to the world and drive sales.
Logistics and operations plan. Everything that happens in the background to make your business function properly.
Financial plan. A breakdown of your numbers to show what you need to get started as well as to prove viability of profitability.
Executive summary

Your executive summary is a page that gives a high-level overview of the rest of your business plan. It’s easiest to save this section for last.

In this free business plan template , the executive summary is four paragraphs and takes a little over half a page:

A four-paragraph long executive summary for a business.

Company description

You might repurpose your company description elsewhere, like on your About page, social media profile pages, or other properties that require a boilerplate description of your small business.

Soap brand ORRIS has a blurb on its About page that could easily be repurposed for the company description section of its business plan.

You can also go more in-depth with your company overview and include the following sections, like in the example for Paw Print Post:

Business structure. This section outlines how you registered your business —as an LLC , sole proprietorship, corporation, or other business type . “Paw Print Post will operate as a sole proprietorship run by the owner, Jane Matthews.”
Nature of the business. “Paw Print Post sells unique, one-of-a-kind digitally printed cards that are customized with a pet’s unique paw prints.”
Industry. “Paw Print Post operates primarily in the pet industry and sells goods that could also be categorized as part of the greeting card industry.”
Background information. “Jane Matthews, the founder of Paw Print Post, has a long history in the pet industry and working with animals, and was recently trained as a graphic designer. She’s combining those two loves to capture a niche in the market: unique greeting cards customized with a pet’s paw prints, without needing to resort to the traditional (and messy) options of casting your pet’s prints in plaster or using pet-safe ink to have them stamp their ‘signature.’”
Business objectives. “Jane will have Paw Print Post ready to launch at the Big Important Pet Expo in Toronto to get the word out among industry players and consumers alike. After two years in business, Jane aims to drive $150,000 in annual revenue from the sale of Paw Print Post’s signature greeting cards and have expanded into two new product categories.”
Team. “Jane Matthews is the sole full-time employee of Paw Print Post but hires contractors as needed to support her workflow and fill gaps in her skill set. Notably, Paw Print Post has a standing contract for five hours a week of virtual assistant support with Virtual Assistants Pro.”

Your mission statement may also make an appearance here. Passionfruit shares its mission statement on its company website, and it would also work well in its example business plan.

Market analysis

The market analysis consists of research about supply and demand, your target demographics, industry trends, and the competitive landscape. You might run a SWOT analysis and include that in your business plan.

Here’s an example SWOT analysis for an online tailored-shirt business:

A SWOT analysis table showing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats

You’ll also want to do a competitive analysis as part of the market research component of your business plan. This will tell you who you’re up against and give you ideas on how to differentiate your brand. A broad competitive analysis might include:

Target customers
Unique value add or what sets their products apart
Sales pitch
Price points for products
Shipping policy
Products and services

This section of your business plan describes your offerings—which products and services do you sell to your customers? Here’s an example for Paw Print Post:

An example products and services section from a business plan

Marketing plan

It’s always a good idea to develop a marketing plan before you launch your business. Your marketing plan shows how you’ll get the word out about your business, and it’s an essential component of your business plan as well.

The Paw Print Post focuses on four Ps: price, product, promotion, and place. However, you can take a different approach with your marketing plan. Maybe you can pull from your existing marketing strategy , or maybe you break it down by the different marketing channels. Whatever approach you take, your marketing plan should describe how you intend to promote your business and offerings to potential customers.

Logistics and operations plan

The Paw Print Post example considered suppliers, production, facilities, equipment, shipping and fulfillment, and inventory.

Financial plan

The financial plan provides a breakdown of sales, revenue, profit, expenses, and other relevant financial metrics related to funding and profiting from your business.

Ecommerce brand Nature’s Candy’s financial plan breaks down predicted revenue, expenses, and net profit in graphs.

A sample bar chart showing business expenses by month

It then dives deeper into the financials to include:

Funding needs
Projected profit-and-loss statement
Projected balance sheet
Projected cash-flow statement

You can use this financial plan spreadsheet to build your own financial statements, including income statement, balance sheet, and cash-flow statement.

Types of business plans, and what to include for each

A one-page business plan is meant to be high level and easy to understand at a glance. You’ll want to include all of the sections, but make sure they’re truncated and summarized:

Executive summary: truncated
Market analysis: summarized
Products and services: summarized
Marketing plan: summarized
Logistics and operations plan: summarized
Financials: summarized

A startup business plan is for a new business. Typically, these plans are developed and shared to secure outside funding . As such, there’s a bigger focus on the financials, as well as on other sections that determine viability of your business idea—market research, for example.

Market analysis: in-depth
Financials: in-depth

Your internal business plan is meant to keep your team on the same page and aligned toward the same goal.

A strategic, or growth, business plan is a bigger picture, more-long-term look at your business. As such, the forecasts tend to look further into the future, and growth and revenue goals may be higher. Essentially, you want to use all the sections you would in a normal business plan and build upon each.

Market analysis: comprehensive outlook
Products and services: for launch and expansion
Marketing plan: comprehensive outlook
Logistics and operations plan: comprehensive outlook
Financials: comprehensive outlook

Feasibility

Your feasibility business plan is sort of a pre-business plan—many refer to it as simply a feasibility study. This plan essentially lays the groundwork and validates that it’s worth the effort to make a full business plan for your idea. As such, it’s mostly centered around research.

Set yourself up for success as a business owner

Building a good business plan serves as a roadmap you can use for your ecommerce business at launch and as you reach each of your business goals. Business plans create accountability for entrepreneurs and synergy among teams, regardless of your business model .

Kickstart your ecommerce business and set yourself up for success with an intentional business planning process—and with the sample business plans above to guide your own path.

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Business plan examples FAQ

How do i write a simple business plan, what is the best format to write a business plan, what are the 4 key elements of a business plan.

Executive summary: A concise overview of the company's mission, goals, target audience, and financial objectives.
Business description: A description of the company's purpose, operations, products and services, target markets, and competitive landscape.
Market analysis: An analysis of the industry, market trends, potential customers, and competitors.
Financial plan: A detailed description of the company's financial forecasts and strategies.

What are the 3 main points of a business plan?

Concept: Your concept should explain the purpose of your business and provide an overall summary of what you intend to accomplish.
Contents: Your content should include details about the products and services you provide, your target market, and your competition.
Cashflow: Your cash flow section should include information about your expected cash inflows and outflows, such as capital investments, operating costs, and revenue projections.

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The 7 Best Business Plan Examples (2024)

As an aspiring entrepreneur gearing up to start your own business , you likely know the importance of drafting a business plan. However, you might not be entirely sure where to begin or what specific details to include. That’s where examining business plan examples can be beneficial. Sample business plans serve as real-world templates to help you craft your own plan with confidence. They also provide insight into the key sections that make up a business plan, as well as demonstrate how to structure and present your ideas effectively.

Example business plan

To understand how to write a business plan, let’s study an example structured using a seven-part template. Here’s a quick overview of those parts:

Executive summary: A quick overview of your business and the contents of your business plan.
Company description: More info about your company, its goals and mission, and why you started it in the first place.
Market analysis: Research about the market and industry your business will operate in, including a competitive analysis about the companies you’ll be up against.
Products and services: A detailed description of what you’ll be selling to your customers.
Marketing plan: A strategic outline of how you plan to market and promote your business before, during, and after your company launches into the market.
Logistics and operations plan: An explanation of the systems, processes, and tools that are needed to run your business in the background.
Financial plan: A map of your short-term (and even long-term) financial goals and the costs to run the business. If you’re looking for funding, this is the place to discuss your request and needs.

7 business plan examples (section by section)

In this section, you’ll find hypothetical and real-world examples of each aspect of a business plan to show you how the whole thing comes together.

Executive summary

Your executive summary offers a high-level overview of the rest of your business plan. You’ll want to include a brief description of your company, market research, competitor analysis, and financial information.

In this free business plan template, the executive summary is three paragraphs and occupies nearly half the page:

Company description

You might go more in-depth with your company description and include the following sections:

Nature of the business. Mention the general category of business you fall under. Are you a manufacturer, wholesaler, or retailer of your products?
Background information. Talk about your past experiences and skills, and how you’ve combined them to fill in the market.
Business structure. This section outlines how you registered your company —as a corporation, sole proprietorship, LLC, or other business type.
Industry. Which business sector do you operate in? The answer might be technology, merchandising, or another industry.
Team. Whether you’re the sole full-time employee of your business or you have contractors to support your daily workflow, this is your chance to put them under the spotlight.

You can also repurpose your company description elsewhere, like on your About page, Instagram page, or other properties that ask for a boilerplate description of your business. Hair extensions brand Luxy Hair has a blurb on it’s About page that could easily be repurposed as a company description for its business plan.

Market analysis

Market analysis comprises research on product supply and demand, your target market, the competitive landscape, and industry trends. You might do a SWOT analysis to learn where you stand and identify market gaps that you could exploit to establish your footing. Here’s an example of a SWOT analysis for a hypothetical ecommerce business:

You’ll also want to run a competitive analysis as part of the market analysis component of your business plan. This will show you who you’re up against and give you ideas on how to gain an edge over the competition.

Products and services

This part of your business plan describes your product or service, how it will be priced, and the ways it will compete against similar offerings in the market. Don’t go into too much detail here—a few lines are enough to introduce your item to the reader.

Marketing plan

Potential investors will want to know how you’ll get the word out about your business. So it’s essential to build a marketing plan that highlights the promotion and customer acquisition strategies you’re planning to adopt.

Most marketing plans focus on the four Ps: product, price, place, and promotion. However, it’s easier when you break it down by the different marketing channels . Mention how you intend to promote your business using blogs, email, social media, and word-of-mouth marketing.

Here’s an example of a hypothetical marketing plan for a real estate website:

marketing section template for business plan

Logistics and operations

This section of your business plan provides information about your production, facilities, equipment, shipping and fulfillment, and inventory.

Financial plan

The financial plan (a.k.a. financial statement) offers a breakdown of your sales, revenue, expenses, profit, and other financial metrics. You’ll want to include all the numbers and concrete data to project your current and projected financial state.

In this business plan example, the financial statement for ecommerce brand Nature’s Candy includes forecasted revenue, expenses, and net profit in graphs.

It then goes deeper into the financials, citing:

Funding needs
Project cash-flow statement
Project profit-and-loss statement
Projected balance sheet

You can use Shopify’s financial plan template to create your own income statement, cash-flow statement, and balance sheet.

Types of business plans (and what to write for each)

A one-page business plan is a pared down version of a standard business plan that’s easy for potential investors and partners to understand. You’ll want to include all of these sections, but make sure they’re abbreviated and summarized:

Logistics and operations plan
Financials

A startup business plan is meant to secure outside funding for a new business. Typically, there’s a big focus on the financials, as well as other sections that help determine the viability of your business idea—market analysis, for example. Shopify has a great business plan template for startups that include all the below points:

Market research: in depth
Financials: in depth

Your internal business plan acts as the enforcer of your company’s vision. It reminds your team of the long-term objective and keeps them strategically aligned toward the same goal. Be sure to include:

Market research

Feasibility

A feasibility business plan is essentially a feasibility study that helps you evaluate whether your product or idea is worthy of a full business plan. Include the following sections:

A strategic (or growth) business plan lays out your long-term vision and goals. This means your predictions stretch further into the future, and you aim for greater growth and revenue. While crafting this document, you use all the parts of a usual business plan but add more to each one:

Products and services: for launch and expansion
Market analysis: detailed analysis
Marketing plan: detailed strategy
Logistics and operations plan: detailed plan
Financials: detailed projections

Free business plan templates

Now that you’re familiar with what’s included and how to format a business plan, let’s go over a few templates you can fill out or draw inspiration from.

Bplans’ free business plan template

Bplans’ free business plan template focuses a lot on the financial side of running a business. It has many pages just for your financial plan and statements. Once you fill it out, you’ll see exactly where your business stands financially and what you need to do to keep it on track or make it better.

PandaDoc’s free business plan template

PandaDoc’s free business plan template is detailed and guides you through every section, so you don’t have to figure everything out on your own. Filling it out, you’ll grasp the ins and outs of your business and how each part fits together. It’s also handy because it connects to PandaDoc’s e-signature for easy signing, ideal for businesses with partners or a board.

Miro’s Business Model Canvas Template

Miro’s Business Model Canvas Template helps you map out the essentials of your business, like partnerships, core activities, and what makes you different. It’s a collaborative tool for you and your team to learn how everything in your business is linked.

Better business planning equals better business outcomes

Building a business plan is key to establishing a clear direction and strategy for your venture. With a solid plan in hand, you’ll know what steps to take for achieving each of your business goals. Kickstart your business planning and set yourself up for success with a defined roadmap—utilizing the sample business plans above to inform your approach.

Business plan FAQ

What are the 3 main points of a business plan.

Concept. Explain what your business does and the main idea behind it. This is where you tell people what you plan to achieve with your business.
Contents. Explain what you’re selling or offering. Point out who you’re selling to and who else is selling something similar. This part concerns your products or services, who will buy them, and who you’re up against.
Cash flow. Explain how money will move in and out of your business. Discuss the money you need to start and keep the business going, the costs of running your business, and how much money you expect to make.

How do I write a simple business plan?

To create a simple business plan, start with an executive summary that details your business vision and objectives. Follow this with a concise description of your company’s structure, your market analysis, and information about your products or services. Conclude your plan with financial projections that outline your expected revenue, expenses, and profitability.

What is the best format to write a business plan?

The optimal format for a business plan arranges your plan in a clear and structured way, helping potential investors get a quick grasp of what your business is about and what you aim to achieve. Always start with a summary of your plan and finish with the financial details or any extra information at the end.

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Written by Jesse Sumrak | May 14, 2023

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Business plans might seem like an old-school stiff-collared practice, but they deserve a place in the startup realm, too. It’s probably not going to be the frame-worthy document you hang in the office—yet, it may one day be deserving of the privilege.

Whether you’re looking to win the heart of an angel investor or convince a bank to lend you money, you’ll need a business plan. And not just any ol’ notes and scribble on the back of a pizza box or napkin—you’ll need a professional, standardized report.

Bah. Sounds like homework, right?

Yes. Yes, it does.

However, just like bookkeeping, loan applications, and 404 redirects, business plans are an essential step in cementing your business foundation.

Don’t worry. We’ll show you how to write a business plan without boring you to tears. We’ve jam-packed this article with all the business plan examples, templates, and tips you need to take your non-existent proposal from concept to completion.

Table of Contents

What Is a Business Plan?

Tips to Make Your Small Business Plan Ironclad

How to Write a Business Plan in 6 Steps

Startup Business Plan Template

Business Plan Examples

Work on Making Your Business Plan

How to Write a Business Plan FAQs

What is a business plan why do you desperately need one.

A business plan is a roadmap that outlines:

Who your business is, what it does, and who it serves
Where your business is now
Where you want it to go
How you’re going to make it happen
What might stop you from taking your business from Point A to Point B
How you’ll overcome the predicted obstacles

While it’s not required when starting a business, having a business plan is helpful for a few reasons:

Secure a Bank Loan: Before approving you for a business loan, banks will want to see that your business is legitimate and can repay the loan. They want to know how you’re going to use the loan and how you’ll make monthly payments on your debt. Lenders want to see a sound business strategy that doesn’t end in loan default.
Win Over Investors: Like lenders, investors want to know they’re going to make a return on their investment. They need to see your business plan to have the confidence to hand you money.
Stay Focused: It’s easy to get lost chasing the next big thing. Your business plan keeps you on track and focused on the big picture. Your business plan can prevent you from wasting time and resources on something that isn’t aligned with your business goals.

Beyond the reasoning, let’s look at what the data says:

Simply writing a business plan can boost your average annual growth by 30%
Entrepreneurs who create a formal business plan are 16% more likely to succeed than those who don’t
A study looking at 65 fast-growth companies found that 71% had small business plans
The process and output of creating a business plan have shown to improve business performance

Convinced yet? If those numbers and reasons don’t have you scrambling for pen and paper, who knows what will.

Don’t Skip: Business Startup Costs Checklist

Before we get into the nitty-gritty steps of how to write a business plan, let’s look at some high-level tips to get you started in the right direction:

Be Professional and Legit

You might be tempted to get cutesy or revolutionary with your business plan—resist the urge. While you should let your brand and creativity shine with everything you produce, business plans fall more into the realm of professional documents.

Think of your business plan the same way as your terms and conditions, employee contracts, or financial statements. You want your plan to be as uniform as possible so investors, lenders, partners, and prospective employees can find the information they need to make important decisions.

If you want to create a fun summary business plan for internal consumption, then, by all means, go right ahead. However, for the purpose of writing this external-facing document, keep it legit.

Know Your Audience

Your official business plan document is for lenders, investors, partners, and big-time prospective employees. Keep these names and faces in your mind as you draft your plan.

Think about what they might be interested in seeing, what questions they’ll ask, and what might convince (or scare) them. Cut the jargon and tailor your language so these individuals can understand.

Remember, these are busy people. They’re likely looking at hundreds of applicants and startup investments every month. Keep your business plan succinct and to the point. Include the most pertinent information and omit the sections that won’t impact their decision-making.

Invest Time Researching

You might not have answers to all the sections you should include in your business plan. Don’t skip over these!

Your audience will want:

Detailed information about your customers
Numbers and solid math to back up your financial claims and estimates
Deep insights about your competitors and potential threats
Data to support market opportunities and strategy

Your answers can’t be hypothetical or opinionated. You need research to back up your claims. If you don’t have that data yet, then invest time and money in collecting it. That information isn’t just critical for your business plan—it’s essential for owning, operating, and growing your company.

Stay Realistic

Your business may be ambitious, but reign in the enthusiasm just a teeny-tiny bit. The last thing you want to do is have an angel investor call BS and say “I’m out” before even giving you a chance.

The folks looking at your business and evaluating your plan have been around the block—they know a thing or two about fact and fiction. Your plan should be a blueprint for success. It should be the step-by-step roadmap for how you’re going from Point A to Point B.

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How to Write a Business Plan—6 Essential Elements

Not every business plan looks the same, but most share a few common elements. Here’s what they typically include:

Executive Summary
Business Overview
Products and Services
Market Analysis
Competitive Analysis
Financial Strategy

Below, we’ll break down each of these sections in more detail.

1. Executive Summary

While your executive summary is the first page of your business plan, it’s the section you’ll write last. That’s because it summarizes your entire business plan into a succinct one-pager.

Begin with an executive summary that introduces the reader to your business and gives them an overview of what’s inside the business plan.

Your executive summary highlights key points of your plan. Consider this your elevator pitch. You want to put all your juiciest strengths and opportunities strategically in this section.

2. Business Overview

In this section, you can dive deeper into the elements of your business, including answering:

What’s your business structure? Sole proprietorship, LLC, corporation, etc.
Where is it located?
Who owns the business? Does it have employees?
What problem does it solve, and how?
What’s your mission statement? Your mission statement briefly describes why you are in business. To write a proper mission statement, brainstorm your business’s core values and who you serve.

Don’t overlook your mission statement. This powerful sentence or paragraph could be the inspiration that drives an investor to take an interest in your business. Here are a few examples of powerful mission statements that just might give you the goosebumps:

Patagonia: Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.
Tesla: To accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.
InvisionApp : Question Assumptions. Think Deeply. Iterate as a Lifestyle. Details, Details. Design is Everywhere. Integrity.
TED : Spread ideas.
Warby Parker : To offer designer eyewear at a revolutionary price while leading the way for socially conscious businesses.

3. Products and Services

As the owner, you know your business and the industry inside and out. However, whoever’s reading your document might not. You’re going to need to break down your products and services in minute detail.

For example, if you own a SaaS business, you’re going to need to explain how this business model works and what you’re selling.

You’ll need to include:

What services you sell: Describe the services you provide and how these will help your target audience.
What products you sell: Describe your products (and types if applicable) and how they will solve a need for your target and provide value.
How much you charge: If you’re selling services, will you charge hourly, per project, retainer, or a mixture of all of these? If you’re selling products, what are the price ranges?

4. Market Analysis

Your market analysis essentially explains how your products and services address customer concerns and pain points. This section will include research and data on the state and direction of your industry and target market.

This research should reveal lucrative opportunities and how your business is uniquely positioned to seize the advantage. You’ll also want to touch on your marketing strategy and how it will (or does) work for your audience.

Include a detailed analysis of your target customers. This describes the people you serve and sell your product to. Be careful not to go too broad here—you don’t want to fall into the common entrepreneurial trap of trying to sell to everyone and thereby not differentiating yourself enough to survive the competition.

The market analysis section will include your unique value proposition. Your unique value proposition (UVP) is the thing that makes you stand out from your competitors. This is your key to success.

If you don’t have a UVP, you don’t have a way to take on competitors who are already in this space. Here’s an example of an ecommerce internet business plan outlining their competitive edge:

FireStarters’ competitive advantage is offering product lines that make a statement but won’t leave you broke. The major brands are expensive and not distinctive enough to satisfy the changing taste of our target customers. FireStarters offers products that are just ahead of the curve and so affordable that our customers will return to the website often to check out what’s new.

5. Competitive Analysis

Your competitive analysis examines the strengths and weaknesses of competing businesses in your market or industry. This will include direct and indirect competitors. It can also include threats and opportunities, like economic concerns or legal restraints.

The best way to sum up this section is with a classic SWOT analysis. This will explain your company’s position in relation to your competitors.

6. Financial Strategy

Your financial strategy will sum up your revenue, expenses, profit (or loss), and financial plan for the future. It’ll explain how you make money, where your cash flow goes, and how you’ll become profitable or stay profitable.

This is one of the most important sections for lenders and investors. Have you ever watched Shark Tank? They always ask about the company’s financial situation. How has it performed in the past? What’s the ongoing outlook moving forward? How does the business plan to make it happen?

Answer all of these questions in your financial strategy so that your audience doesn’t have to ask. Go ahead and include forecasts and graphs in your plan, too:

Balance sheet: This includes your assets, liabilities, and equity.
Profit & Loss (P&L) statement: This details your income and expenses over a given period.
Cash flow statement: Similar to the P&L, this one will show all cash flowing into and out of the business each month.

It takes cash to change the world—lenders and investors get it. If you’re short on funding, explain how much money you’ll need and how you’ll use the capital. Where are you looking for financing? Are you looking to take out a business loan, or would you rather trade equity for capital instead?

Read More: 16 Financial Concepts Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know

Startup Business Plan Template (Copy/Paste Outline)

Ready to write your own business plan? Copy/paste the startup business plan template below and fill in the blanks.

Executive Summary Remember, do this last. Summarize who you are and your business plan in one page.

Business Overview Describe your business. What’s it do? Who owns it? How’s it structured? What’s the mission statement?

Products and Services Detail the products and services you offer. How do they work? What do you charge?

Market Analysis Write about the state of the market and opportunities. Use date. Describe your customers. Include your UVP.

Competitive Analysis Outline the competitors in your market and industry. Include threats and opportunities. Add a SWOT analysis of your business.

Financial Strategy Sum up your revenue, expenses, profit (or loss), and financial plan for the future. If you’re applying for a loan, include how you’ll use the funding to progress the business.

What’s the Best Business Plan to Succeed as a Consultant?

5 Frame-Worthy Business Plan Examples

Want to explore other templates and examples? We got you covered. Check out these 5 business plan examples you can use as inspiration when writing your plan:

SBA Wooden Grain Toy Company
SBA We Can Do It Consulting
OrcaSmart Business Plan Sample
Plum Business Plan Template
PandaDoc Free Business Plan Templates

Get to Work on Making Your Business Plan

If you find you’re getting stuck on perfecting your document, opt for a simple one-page business plan —and then get to work. You can always polish up your official plan later as you learn more about your business and the industry.

Remember, business plans are not a requirement for starting a business—they’re only truly essential if a bank or investor is asking for it.

Ask others to review your business plan. Get feedback from other startups and successful business owners. They’ll likely be able to see holes in your planning or undetected opportunities—just make sure these individuals aren’t your competitors (or potential competitors).

Your business plan isn’t a one-and-done report—it’s a living, breathing document. You’ll make changes to it as you grow and evolve. When the market or your customers change, your plan will need to change to adapt.

That means when you’re finished with this exercise, it’s not time to print your plan out and stuff it in a file cabinet somewhere. No, it should sit on your desk as a day-to-day reference. Use it (and update it) as you make decisions about your product, customers, and financial plan.

Review your business plan frequently, update it routinely, and follow the path you’ve developed to the future you’re building.

Keep Learning: New Product Development Process in 8 Easy Steps

What financial information should be included in a business plan?

Be as detailed as you can without assuming too much. For example, include your expected revenue, expenses, profit, and growth for the future.

What are some common mistakes to avoid when writing a business plan?

The most common mistake is turning your business plan into a textbook. A business plan is an internal guide and an external pitching tool. Cut the fat and only include the most relevant information to start and run your business.

Who should review my business plan before I submit it?

Co-founders, investors, or a board of advisors. Otherwise, reach out to a trusted mentor, your local chamber of commerce, or someone you know that runs a business.

Ready to Write Your Business Plan?

Don’t let creating a business plan hold you back from starting your business. Writing documents might not be your thing—that doesn’t mean your business is a bad idea.

Let us help you get started.

Join our free training to learn how to start an online side hustle in 30 days or less. We’ll provide you with a proven roadmap for how to find, validate, and pursue a profitable business idea (even if you have zero entrepreneurial experience).

Stuck on the ideas part? No problem. When you attend the masterclass, we’ll send you a free ebook with 100 of the hottest side hustle trends right now. It’s chock full of brilliant business ideas to get you up and running in the right direction.

About Jesse Sumrak

Jesse Sumrak is a writing zealot focused on creating killer content. He’s spent almost a decade writing about startup, marketing, and entrepreneurship topics, having built and sold his own post-apocalyptic fitness bootstrapped business. A writer by day and a peak bagger by night (and early early morning), you can usually find Jesse preparing for the apocalypse on a precipitous peak somewhere in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

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How To Write A Business Plan (2024 Guide)

Updated: Apr 17, 2024, 11:59am

How To Write A Business Plan (2024 Guide)

Brainstorm an executive summary, create a company description, brainstorm your business goals, describe your services or products, conduct market research, create financial plans, bottom line, frequently asked questions.

Every business starts with a vision, which is distilled and communicated through a business plan. In addition to your high-level hopes and dreams, a strong business plan outlines short-term and long-term goals, budget and whatever else you might need to get started. In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to write a business plan that you can stick to and help guide your operations as you get started.

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Drafting the Summary

An executive summary is an extremely important first step in your business. You have to be able to put the basic facts of your business in an elevator pitch-style sentence to grab investors’ attention and keep their interest. This should communicate your business’s name, what the products or services you’re selling are and what marketplace you’re entering.

Ask for Help

When drafting the executive summary, you should have a few different options. Enlist a few thought partners to review your executive summary possibilities to determine which one is best.

After you have the executive summary in place, you can work on the company description, which contains more specific information. In the description, you’ll need to include your business’s registered name , your business address and any key employees involved in the business.

The business description should also include the structure of your business, such as sole proprietorship , limited liability company (LLC) , partnership or corporation. This is the time to specify how much of an ownership stake everyone has in the company. Finally, include a section that outlines the history of the company and how it has evolved over time.

Wherever you are on the business journey, you return to your goals and assess where you are in meeting your in-progress targets and setting new goals to work toward.

Numbers-based Goals

Goals can cover a variety of sections of your business. Financial and profit goals are a given for when you’re establishing your business, but there are other goals to take into account as well with regard to brand awareness and growth. For example, you might want to hit a certain number of followers across social channels or raise your engagement rates.

Another goal could be to attract new investors or find grants if you’re a nonprofit business. If you’re looking to grow, you’ll want to set revenue targets to make that happen as well.

Intangible Goals

Goals unrelated to traceable numbers are important as well. These can include seeing your business’s advertisement reach the general public or receiving a terrific client review. These goals are important for the direction you take your business and the direction you want it to go in the future.

The business plan should have a section that explains the services or products that you’re offering. This is the part where you can also describe how they fit in the current market or are providing something necessary or entirely new. If you have any patents or trademarks, this is where you can include those too.

If you have any visual aids, they should be included here as well. This would also be a good place to include pricing strategy and explain your materials.

This is the part of the business plan where you can explain your expertise and different approach in greater depth. Show how what you’re offering is vital to the market and fills an important gap.

You can also situate your business in your industry and compare it to other ones and how you have a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Other than financial goals, you want to have a budget and set your planned weekly, monthly and annual spending. There are several different costs to consider, such as operational costs.

Business Operations Costs

Rent for your business is the first big cost to factor into your budget. If your business is remote, the cost that replaces rent will be the software that maintains your virtual operations.

Marketing and sales costs should be next on your list. Devoting money to making sure people know about your business is as important as making sure it functions.

Other Costs

Although you can’t anticipate disasters, there are likely to be unanticipated costs that come up at some point in your business’s existence. It’s important to factor these possible costs into your financial plans so you’re not caught totally unaware.

Business plans are important for businesses of all sizes so that you can define where your business is and where you want it to go. Growing your business requires a vision, and giving yourself a roadmap in the form of a business plan will set you up for success.

How do I write a simple business plan?

When you’re working on a business plan, make sure you have as much information as possible so that you can simplify it to the most relevant information. A simple business plan still needs all of the parts included in this article, but you can be very clear and direct.

What are some common mistakes in a business plan?

The most common mistakes in a business plan are common writing issues like grammar errors or misspellings. It’s important to be clear in your sentence structure and proofread your business plan before sending it to any investors or partners.

What basic items should be included in a business plan?

When writing out a business plan, you want to make sure that you cover everything related to your concept for the business, an analysis of the industry―including potential customers and an overview of the market for your goods or services―how you plan to execute your vision for the business, how you plan to grow the business if it becomes successful and all financial data around the business, including current cash on hand, potential investors and budget plans for the next few years.

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Home » Excel Planners » Personnel Plan

Download Personnel Plan Template In Excel

Excel planners.

Use this customizable personnel plan template to map out current and future staff needed to get and keep the business running. This information belongs in the personnel section of a business plan, and details job title, amount of pay, and hiring timeline for each position. This template calculates the monthly and yearly expenses associated with each role using built-in formula. Additionally, you can also add an organizational chart to provide a visual overview of the company’s structure.

Personnel Plan

A personnel plan is a critical part of your business plan and financial forecast . In addition to this helping you budget for current and future employees, your plan enables you to think through who you should hire and when you should hire them.

Personnel in Business Plan

Key personnel in business plan.

Anticipated growth of organization: …
Budget constraint and allocations: …
Anticipated internal turnover: …
Introduction of newly technology: …
Minority hiring goals

Do you need a personnel plan if you have no employees?

If you are a sole proprietor and don’t have any employees, you should still include your own salary as part of the business plan. Make sure to include your salary as an expense in your Profit & Loss Statement. Even if, the business owner, don’t take the salary. So you can keep the cash in your business, you’ll want to record what you should have been paid.

In the case of a sole proprietor, you probably don’t need a full table, like in the example above. But, when you do start planning to hire a team, you should use the format I’ve described here.

Download this Personnel Plan template in Excel Format

Our easy to use editable Excel templates and save your significant amount of time and effort. Here’s how to download and use one of our templates:

Download this free Excel Template : Once you’ve browsed through our collection of templates and find the one that best fits your needs. Once you’ve found the template you want, click on the download button.

Replace sample data with your actual data: Once the template is downloaded, open it in Excel. You’ll see that it is already set up with sample data. To start analyzing your own data, simply replace the sample data with your actual data.

Customize the template: Our templates are completely editable, which means you can customize them to fit your specific needs. For example, you can change the formatting, add or remove columns, or create new charts and graphs.

Use the Excel template: Once you’ve fed in your data and customized the template, you’re ready to start using it for data analysis. Use the various tools and features of Excel to analyze and visualize your data, and make informed business decisions.

Save and share: Once you’ve finished working on the template, save it to your computer and share it with other members of your team or stakeholders as needed.

Click Download Button To Get Personnel Plan Excel Template

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Top 10 personal business goals examples for 2024.

Top 10 Personal Business Goals You Can Set and Achieve

Do you have a professional development goal? Change can sometimes feel daunting, but it doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task. A lot of successful people set milestones that are specific and measurable to help make a realistic goal become a success.

Everyone works differently and has other things going on in their lives, so some strategies will work better than others. The main thing is to make sure your goals are achievable while you maintain a healthy work-life balance. If they’re not, you are just setting yourself up for failure.

One way to improve productivity while reducing stress and finding more time to do the things you love, like spending time with family, is automating processes, like incorporating accounting, planning, and tracking software into your business processes. Doing this will reduce the time and mental space spent on these tasks, allowing you the freedom to work on the creative side of your business or take a day off every once in a while. A good balance between your personal and professional life can make all the difference in your mental health and achieving your professional development goals.

FreshBooks offers a variety of helpful tools that will help you with everything in your professional life, from bookkeeping to client management .

Click here to learn more about how FreshBooks can improve your overall quality of life and give you more free time to spend away from the computer.

There are also individual business goals that you can set and achieve that will help you avoid becoming overwhelmed in life. Let’s take a look at the top 10 personal business goals that will help you reach professional success.

Key Takeaways

A healthy work-life balance can help you avoid burnout
Setting professional development goals and learning new professional skills can help you with your career advancement
Stepping outside of your comfort zone can help you achieve great results in your professional life
Being creative and becoming a thought leader can position you at the top of your field
Keeping the body and mind healthy is the key to stress reduction
Earning a promotion can be as simple as improving your focus through targeted goal setting
Knowing your limits while embracing discomfort can help you expand your reach without overextending yourself
Setting SMART goals is the most effective way to achieve big dreams

Here’s what we’ll cover:

What Are Professional Development Goals?

The top 10 personal business goals, what are personal development goals for work, how can you achieve your career goals, why set goals for work.

Frequently Asked Questions

A professional development goal is any objective you want to set for yourself that will help you enhance your career. Examples of professional goals include learning new relevant skills, finding more satisfaction in the workplace, expanding your network, leveling up your credentials, or taking up leadership opportunities when presented.

Some examples of personal goals you may wish to achieve include incorporating self-care into your routine, improving public speaking skills, limiting social media usage, and working to change procrastination habits.

Both personal and professional development goals can help you get ahead, keeping you productive and up-to-date on new trends, improving networks, and ensuring you build a life that is right for you, so you feel satisfied in your career and life.

The easiest way to set achievable goals, both in your personal and professional life, is by utilizing the SMART method. This means that the goals you choose should be:

S PECIFIC, with every step laid out including what needs to be accomplished, and the steps that need to be taken
M EASURABLE, by setting trackable benchmarks, like specific dates you will practice a new skill, the number of hours a week you allow yourself to spend online, a specific financial saving goal, etc.
A CHIEVABLE, starting small and realistically. Don’t set yourself up for failure. Choose something you can definitely accomplish with a little work.
R ELEVANT and pertinent to the overall vision. Knowing the “why” behind the goal will keep you motivated, and your goal will keep you moving toward the life you envision for yourself
T IME-BOUND, as a time parameter, will keep you on track and give you a deadline to hit

When you use the SMART method, achieving personal development goals is much easier. This framework is designed to make goal achievement realistic in both your personal life and your professional career.

You can throw your own personal spin on goal setting and alter them so they work with your needs. There isn’t a perfect recipe for figuring out which goals to set. You just need to make sure you have achievable goals, and they’re attainable and measurable.

This way, you have the best possible chance of success regardless of your ultimate goal or professional development goal. Here are the top 10 personal business goals you can set and achieve.

1. Improve your Online Image

There can be a thousand moving parts to staying relevant online in today’s digital world. But there are certain things you can do to help improve your online image. One of the first things you should do, if you haven’t already, is make sure you own your domain name.

It could be your personal or company name, but try to ensure it’s relevant to your business. You can also think about investing in high-quality headshots from a professional photographer. This will help make your social media profiles and website stand out.

They will also give you something professional to send to organizers if you’re speaking at an event or making another public appearance. As well, spend some time putting together a portfolio of your best work.

You can share it online or post samples to your LinkedIn page. For example, tons of free writing portfolio websites are available that can make it simple and easy to drag and drop documents.

2. Become a Thought Leader

It’s never too early to start to position yourself as a thought leader or authority in your industry. Reach out and contact appropriate business people to try and moderate or speak on a panel. You can also enquire about appearing on a podcast or a guest blog post.

Identifying every opportunity you can to share your knowledge and business expertise can have a positive impact in the long run. You can build your credibility and audience and grow into a thought-provoking leader.

3. Find a New Business Idea

Do you spend a lot of time thinking about your business and ways that you can grow or expand? Some of those ideas might seem far-fetched or out of reach. But why do they have to be? What personal and business goals would you hope to achieve by starting your company?

Develop a new idea, implement it, and establish yourself as a leader in your field. And you don’t just have to limit yourself to things like industry blogs or social media. You can get inspired by other people’s work and put your own spin on it.

4. Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

It might seem like a bit of a cliche, but getting outside your comfort zone can have many positive benefits. It might seem scary, but doing something drastic like speaking in public or attending networking events can be a good start. You can improve your communication skills and take actionable steps toward personal growth.

Sometimes getting outside your comfort zone is simply about finding ways to become better, even in the smallest of ways. It also allows you to realize that there are things about yourself you might have underestimated before and helps build emotional intelligence and self-awareness.

5. Learn a New Skill

Nobody knows everything. There are always opportunities to learn and improve, and learning a new skill is one way to do that. You can meet new people, and there are many free courses and resources online.

Education doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming. Discuss some options with your employer or workplace and see if they offer training. Some of the most desired skills in today’s economy include:

Excel skills
Web development
Copywriting
Public speaking
Google Analytics
Digital Marketing
Time management
Project management

Meeting project management goals, collaborating with your team, and tracking time and expenses is so much simpler using FreshBooks project management software. Click here for a free trial, so you can free up mental space and improve your overall productivity.

6. Monitor and Evaluate Your Health

Keeping your mind and body healthy is integral to staying productive, energetic, and engaged in your work. Go to the dentist, schedule a checkup with your doctor, and take plenty of time for self-care. Get creative with your health goals while recognizing areas where you can take a break, reset, and return with more focus and drive. Sleeping well, eating healthy food, and getting exercise will keep your body fit and help you avoid missing work due to stress and preventable physical health issues.

7. Start a Side Hustle

Sometimes, long-term goals don’t necessarily improve your company or allow you to increase your skills. Perhaps you want to start a business, work for yourself, or transition into a different industry or business sector.

A side hustle can help get you there. It can also provide some increased financials that might make it easier to pay off debts or bills if you have any.

8. Earn a Promotion

Earning a promotion takes planning, so it’s definitely a long-term goal instead of a short-term one. You can get started now to prepare yourself for any upcoming performance review. Make it a personal work goal to try and exceed any of your previous performance metrics .

This improvement will demonstrate you have value to the company and you have substantial leadership capability . These are important skills and personality traits businesses want to keep on their team.

Try thinking of some new tasks or projects you could undertake. You could learn new skills or develop relationships outside of business. Whatever it is, it shows initiative and that you are an integral part of the business operations.

9. Improve Your Focus

Learning to tune out distractions and avoid downtime can help increase your productivity. Try and turn off your phone or leave it in another room while working. This will leave you less tempted to check notifications and surf through social media.

It’s difficult to focus when you’re burned out, so try and keep a healthy work and life balance. This will help ensure you’re energized and motivated when you return to work. You can also try and block off certain periods to grab a snack or take a walk to return to your work focused.

10. Boost Your Confidence

Everyone has moments of doubt and feelings of inadequacy. Try and make some personal goals to improve or boost your confidence. You can ask more questions in meetings or learn to trust your gut and intuition.

Accepting that you are going to make mistakes is a great place to start. No one is perfect, and making mistakes allows you to learn. You can understand what happened and ensure you make proper adjustments, so it doesn’t happen again in the future.

Having regular meetings with a project manager or coworker to discuss challenges at work can also make things easier. When details are discussed in the open, it makes them more actionable and real.

Take a look at some of these personal development goals that can make you even more focused and productive at work.

Include time for personal interests and hobbies
Embrace saying “no” to certain things
Keep a journal of daily occurrences
Volunteer to take a break from the grind of daily business activities
Become a mentor to share your expertise with the next generation
Improving communication skills
Better time management skills

Taking the first step to achieve your goals is writing them down. But do you have a plan or strategy to reach your goals? How are you going to get to where you want to go?

Here are five tips to help you achieve your career goals.

1. Embrace the journey

It can sometimes take a long time to achieve your career goals, they don’t often happen overnight. It’s important to embrace the experiences along the way instead of being narrowly focused on a singular path. Things can happen differently or unexpectedly, and that’s okay.

2. Know what you’re willing to sacrifice

What are you willing to give up or sacrifice to achieve your career goals? For example, if being close to friends and family is important to you, moving far away for a dream job might not work out. Or, if you love to travel, committing to a job that keeps you behind a desk might be a recipe for disaster. You want your career path to be fulfilling, not draining.

3. Take your struggles in stride

There are going to be rough patches and moments of stress. You can work with a mentor or someone who can help provide advice and solutions to help you get through any struggles.

4. Give back when you can

Paying it forward is one of those things that have unintended positive results. Help other young professionals or students through mentoring or by offering career advice. Do you remember someone who gave you advice early in your career and how helpful it was? Try and return the favor and give back when you can.

5. Set measurable goals

Goals and milestones are useless if they’re not attainable. Use the SMART goals process, which is an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. This framework helps ensure your goals are specific and quantifiable.

Setting achievable work goals will keep you motivated and stop your skills from atrophying. Remaining still in one position for a long period of time can become boring and demotivating for many people, so giving yourself additional challenges will keep you engaged and excited.

Goal setting is also important because of it:

This will set you apart from the rest and give you a good reputation amongst higher-ups as somebody who can achieve great things and is not afraid to try new things
Encourages optimism in the workplace, which can be contagious and lead to a happier and healthier workplace for everybody
Helps you manage your time effectively and better focus on relevant tasks
Keeps you up to date on industry trends and keeps you employable as technology changes
Keeps your team aligned, which leads to faster growth in small businesses

Balancing work and personal life can become stressful. You want to ensure you are delivering on your tasks and responsibilities at work, but you also want to have time at home with friends and family. It can sometimes be even more difficult to try and set personal business goals to achieve.

The good news is that there are tons of things that you can do to help you set your goals and ultimately achieve them. Becoming a thought leader, generating new business ideas, or improving your focus are just goals you can set and achieve. When you are figuring out which goals you want to set, it’s important to make sure that they’re attainable and specific. If they’re not, your journey to achieving them will become bumpy and likely have some detours. Use the SMART acronym to help make sure your goals are quantifiable and contribute to your growth mindset.

Did you enjoy reading this guide? Head over to our leadership category for more great content!

FAQs on Personal Business Goals

How do you write a personal goal for a business.

When writing a personal goal for your business, it is important to identify your objective, or the “why” behind the goal, to discover what success will mean to you. Using the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based) acronym will help with this step.

Next, you will need to create a plan that can be broken down into small, actionable steps and milestones. This way, you can measure how far you have come toward the goal and make adjustments if necessary. Monitoring your progress and reviewing the plan regularly will keep you on track.

What is a typical business goal?

Business goals vary between industries but will be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based. Some common business goals include increasing shareholder value, growing the business, incorporating new services or products, reducing employee turnover, or reaching out to the community. The goal is to keep the business continually progressing and improving.

What are personal and professional goals?

Both personal and professional goals are objectives that can be worked toward in order to improve quality of life in some way. Personal goals often pertain to a person’s lifestyle and family life, while professional goals are aspirations that can help you succeed in your career or improve your workplace performance.

What goals can I set for myself?

Some goals you can set that will help you in your personal and professional life include things like improving your time management , limiting internet usage, taking better care of your physical and mental health, achieving specific financial goals, stepping outside of your comfort zone, or learning new skills.

What personal and business goals would you hope to achieve by starting your company?

When thinking about starting your own company, what are the goals you want to achieve? Some common answers to this question include financial freedom, early retirement, making a career change, professional growth, having flexible hours, and having a better work-life balance .

You will have to think about your own life and what you hope to gain from starting your own company. Will it bring you a higher sense of satisfaction to work for yourself? Will you enjoy having more control over the business end of things?

Kristen Slavin, CPA

About the author

Kristen Slavin is a CPA with 16 years of experience, specializing in accounting, bookkeeping, and tax services for small businesses. A member of the CPA Association of BC, she also holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Simon Fraser University. In her spare time, Kristen enjoys camping, hiking, and road tripping with her husband and two children. In 2022 Kristen founded K10 Accounting. The firm offers bookkeeping and accounting services for business and personal needs, as well as ERP consulting and audit assistance.

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How to Write a Business Plan: Step-by-Step Guide + Examples

Determined female African-American entrepreneur scaling a mountain while wearing a large backpack. Represents the journey to starting and growing a business and needi

Noah Parsons

24 min. read

Updated July 29, 2024

Download Now: Free Business Plan Template →

Writing a business plan doesn’t have to be complicated.

In this step-by-step guide, you’ll learn how to write a business plan that’s detailed enough to impress bankers and potential investors, while giving you the tools to start, run, and grow a successful business.

The basics of business planning

If you’re reading this guide, then you already know why you need a business plan .

You understand that planning helps you:

Raise money
Grow strategically
Keep your business on the right track

As you start to write your plan, it’s useful to zoom out and remember what a business plan is .

At its core, a business plan is an overview of the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy: how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

Most business plans also include financial forecasts for the future. These set sales goals, budget for expenses, and predict profits and cash flow.

A good business plan is much more than just a document that you write once and forget about. It’s also a guide that helps you outline and achieve your goals.

After completing your plan, you can use it as a management tool to track your progress toward your goals. Updating and adjusting your forecasts and budgets as you go is one of the most important steps you can take to run a healthier, smarter business.

We’ll dive into how to use your plan later in this article.

There are many different types of plans , but we’ll go over the most common type here, which includes everything you need for an investor-ready plan. However, if you’re just starting out and are looking for something simpler—I recommend starting with a one-page business plan . It’s faster and easier to create.

It’s also the perfect place to start if you’re just figuring out your idea, or need a simple strategic plan to use inside your business.

Dig deeper : How to write a one-page business plan

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What to include in your business plan

Executive summary

The executive summary is an overview of your business and your plans. It comes first in your plan and is ideally just one to two pages. Most people write it last because it’s a summary of the complete business plan.

Ideally, the executive summary can act as a stand-alone document that covers the highlights of your detailed plan.

In fact, it’s common for investors to ask only for the executive summary when evaluating your business. If they like what they see in the executive summary, they’ll often follow up with a request for a complete plan, a pitch presentation , or more in-depth financial forecasts .

Your executive summary should include:

A summary of the problem you are solving
A description of your product or service
An overview of your target market
A brief description of your team
A summary of your financials
Your funding requirements (if you are raising money)

Dig Deeper: How to write an effective executive summary

Products and services description

This is where you describe exactly what you’re selling, and how it solves a problem for your target market. The best way to organize this part of your plan is to start by describing the problem that exists for your customers. After that, you can describe how you plan to solve that problem with your product or service.

This is usually called a problem and solution statement .

To truly showcase the value of your products and services, you need to craft a compelling narrative around your offerings. How will your product or service transform your customers’ lives or jobs? A strong narrative will draw in your readers.

This is also the part of the business plan to discuss any competitive advantages you may have, like specific intellectual property or patents that protect your product. If you have any initial sales, contracts, or other evidence that your product or service is likely to sell, include that information as well. It will show that your idea has traction , which can help convince readers that your plan has a high chance of success.

Market analysis

Your target market is a description of the type of people that you plan to sell to. You might even have multiple target markets, depending on your business.

A market analysis is the part of your plan where you bring together all of the information you know about your target market. Basically, it’s a thorough description of who your customers are and why they need what you’re selling. You’ll also include information about the growth of your market and your industry .

Try to be as specific as possible when you describe your market.

Include information such as age, income level, and location—these are what’s called “demographics.” If you can, also describe your market’s interests and habits as they relate to your business—these are “psychographics.”

Related: Target market examples

Essentially, you want to include any knowledge you have about your customers that is relevant to how your product or service is right for them. With a solid target market, it will be easier to create a sales and marketing plan that will reach your customers. That’s because you know who they are, what they like to do, and the best ways to reach them.

Next, provide any additional information you have about your market.

What is the size of your market ? Is the market growing or shrinking? Ideally, you’ll want to demonstrate that your market is growing over time, and also explain how your business is positioned to take advantage of any expected changes in your industry.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write a market analysis

Competitive analysis

Part of defining your business opportunity is determining what your competitive advantage is. To do this effectively, you need to know as much about your competitors as your target customers.

Every business has some form of competition. If you don’t think you have competitors, then explore what alternatives there are in the market for your product or service.

For example: In the early years of cars, their main competition was horses. For social media, the early competition was reading books, watching TV, and talking on the phone.

A good competitive analysis fully lays out the competitive landscape and then explains how your business is different. Maybe your products are better made, or cheaper, or your customer service is superior. Maybe your competitive advantage is your location – a wide variety of factors can ultimately give you an advantage.

Dig Deeper: How to write a competitive analysis for your business plan

Marketing and sales plan

The marketing and sales plan covers how you will position your product or service in the market, the marketing channels and messaging you will use, and your sales tactics.

The best place to start with a marketing plan is with a positioning statement .

This explains how your business fits into the overall market, and how you will explain the advantages of your product or service to customers. You’ll use the information from your competitive analysis to help you with your positioning.

For example: You might position your company as the premium, most expensive but the highest quality option in the market. Or your positioning might focus on being locally owned and that shoppers support the local economy by buying your products.

Once you understand your positioning, you’ll bring this together with the information about your target market to create your marketing strategy .

This is how you plan to communicate your message to potential customers. Depending on who your customers are and how they purchase products like yours, you might use many different strategies, from social media advertising to creating a podcast. Your marketing plan is all about how your customers discover who you are and why they should consider your products and services.

While your marketing plan is about reaching your customers—your sales plan will describe the actual sales process once a customer has decided that they’re interested in what you have to offer.

If your business requires salespeople and a long sales process, describe that in this section. If your customers can “self-serve” and just make purchases quickly on your website, describe that process.

A good sales plan picks up where your marketing plan leaves off. The marketing plan brings customers in the door and the sales plan is how you close the deal.

Together, these specific plans paint a picture of how you will connect with your target audience, and how you will turn them into paying customers.

Dig deeper: What to include in your sales and marketing plan

Business operations

The operations section describes the necessary requirements for your business to run smoothly. It’s where you talk about how your business works and what day-to-day operations look like.

Depending on how your business is structured, your operations plan may include elements of the business like:

Supply chain management
Manufacturing processes
Equipment and technology
Distribution

Some businesses distribute their products and reach their customers through large retailers like Amazon.com, Walmart, Target, and grocery store chains.

These businesses should review how this part of their business works. The plan should discuss the logistics and costs of getting products onto store shelves and any potential hurdles the business may have to overcome.

If your business is much simpler than this, that’s OK. This section of your business plan can be either extremely short or more detailed, depending on the type of business you are building.

For businesses selling services, such as physical therapy or online software, you can use this section to describe the technology you’ll leverage, what goes into your service, and who you will partner with to deliver your services.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write the operations chapter of your plan

Key milestones and metrics

Although it’s not required to complete your business plan, mapping out key business milestones and the metrics can be incredibly useful for measuring your success.

Good milestones clearly lay out the parameters of the task and set expectations for their execution. You’ll want to include:

A description of each task
The proposed due date
Who is responsible for each task

If you have a budget, you can include projected costs to hit each milestone. You don’t need extensive project planning in this section—just list key milestones you want to hit and when you plan to hit them. This is your overall business roadmap.

Possible milestones might be:

Website launch date
Store or office opening date
First significant sales
Break even date
Business licenses and approvals

You should also discuss the key numbers you will track to determine your success. Some common metrics worth tracking include:

Conversion rates
Customer acquisition costs
Profit per customer
Repeat purchases

It’s perfectly fine to start with just a few metrics and grow the number you are tracking over time. You also may find that some metrics simply aren’t relevant to your business and can narrow down what you’re tracking.

Dig Deeper: How to use milestones in your business plan

Organization and management team

Investors don’t just look for great ideas—they want to find great teams. Use this chapter to describe your current team and who you need to hire . You should also provide a quick overview of your location and history if you’re already up and running.

Briefly highlight the relevant experiences of each key team member in the company. It’s important to make the case for why yours is the right team to turn an idea into a reality.

Do they have the right industry experience and background? Have members of the team had entrepreneurial successes before?

If you still need to hire key team members, that’s OK. Just note those gaps in this section.

Your company overview should also include a summary of your company’s current business structure . The most common business structures include:

Sole proprietor
Partnership

Be sure to provide an overview of how the business is owned as well. Does each business partner own an equal portion of the business? How is ownership divided?

Potential lenders and investors will want to know the structure of the business before they will consider a loan or investment.

Dig Deeper: How to write about your company structure and team

Financial plan

Last, but certainly not least, is your financial plan chapter.

Entrepreneurs often find this section the most daunting. But, business financials for most startups are less complicated than you think, and a business degree is certainly not required to build a solid financial forecast.

A typical financial forecast in a business plan includes the following:

Sales forecast : An estimate of the sales expected over a given period. You’ll break down your forecast into the key revenue streams that you expect to have.
Expense budget : Your planned spending such as personnel costs , marketing expenses, and taxes.
Profit & Loss : Brings together your sales and expenses and helps you calculate planned profits.
Cash Flow : Shows how cash moves into and out of your business. It can predict how much cash you’ll have on hand at any given point in the future.
Balance Sheet : A list of the assets, liabilities, and equity in your company. In short, it provides an overview of the financial health of your business.

A strong business plan will include a description of assumptions about the future, and potential risks that could impact the financial plan. Including those will be especially important if you’re writing a business plan to pursue a loan or other investment.

Dig Deeper: How to create financial forecasts and budgets

This is the place for additional data, charts, or other information that supports your plan.

Including an appendix can significantly enhance the credibility of your plan by showing readers that you’ve thoroughly considered the details of your business idea, and are backing your ideas up with solid data.

Just remember that the information in the appendix is meant to be supplementary. Your business plan should stand on its own, even if the reader skips this section.

Dig Deeper : What to include in your business plan appendix

Optional: Business plan cover page

Adding a business plan cover page can make your plan, and by extension your business, seem more professional in the eyes of potential investors, lenders, and partners. It serves as the introduction to your document and provides necessary contact information for stakeholders to reference.

Your cover page should be simple and include:

Company logo
Business name
Value proposition (optional)
Business plan title
Completion and/or update date
Address and contact information
Confidentiality statement

Just remember, the cover page is optional. If you decide to include it, keep it very simple and only spend a short amount of time putting it together.

Dig Deeper: How to create a business plan cover page

How to use AI to help write your business plan

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT can speed up the business plan writing process and help you think through concepts like market segmentation and competition. These tools are especially useful for taking ideas that you provide and converting them into polished text for your business plan.

The best way to use AI for your business plan is to leverage it as a collaborator , not a replacement for human creative thinking and ingenuity.

AI can come up with lots of ideas and act as a brainstorming partner. It’s up to you to filter through those ideas and figure out which ones are realistic enough to resonate with your customers.

There are pros and cons of using AI to help with your business plan . So, spend some time understanding how it can be most helpful before just outsourcing the job to AI.

Learn more: 10 AI prompts you need to write a business plan

Writing tips and strategies

To help streamline the business plan writing process, here are a few tips and key questions to answer to make sure you get the most out of your plan and avoid common mistakes .

Determine why you are writing a business plan

Knowing why you are writing a business plan will determine your approach to your planning project.

For example: If you are writing a business plan for yourself, or just to use inside your own business , you can probably skip the section about your team and organizational structure.

If you’re raising money, you’ll want to spend more time explaining why you’re looking to raise the funds and exactly how you will use them.

Regardless of how you intend to use your business plan , think about why you are writing and what you’re trying to get out of the process before you begin.

Keep things concise

Probably the most important tip is to keep your business plan short and simple. There are no prizes for long business plans . The longer your plan is, the less likely people are to read it.

So focus on trimming things down to the essentials your readers need to know. Skip the extended, wordy descriptions and instead focus on creating a plan that is easy to read —using bullets and short sentences whenever possible.

Have someone review your business plan

Writing a business plan in a vacuum is never a good idea. Sometimes it’s helpful to zoom out and check if your plan makes sense to someone else. You also want to make sure that it’s easy to read and understand.

Don’t wait until your plan is “done” to get a second look. Start sharing your plan early, and find out from readers what questions your plan leaves unanswered. This early review cycle will help you spot shortcomings in your plan and address them quickly, rather than finding out about them right before you present your plan to a lender or investor.

If you need a more detailed review, you may want to explore hiring a professional plan writer to thoroughly examine it.

Use a free business plan template and business plan examples to get started

Knowing what information to include in a business plan is sometimes not quite enough. If you’re struggling to get started or need additional guidance, it may be worth using a business plan template.

There are plenty of great options available (we’ve rounded up our 8 favorites to streamline your search).

But, if you’re looking for a free downloadable business plan template , you can get one right now; download the template used by more than 1 million businesses.

Or, if you just want to see what a completed business plan looks like, check out our library of over 550 free business plan examples .

We even have a growing list of industry business planning guides with tips for what to focus on depending on your business type.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

It’s easy to make mistakes when you’re writing your business plan. Some entrepreneurs get sucked into the writing and research process, and don’t focus enough on actually getting their business started.

Here are a few common mistakes and how to avoid them:

Not talking to your customers : This is one of the most common mistakes. It’s easy to assume that your product or service is something that people want. Before you invest too much in your business and too much in the planning process, make sure you talk to your prospective customers and have a good understanding of their needs.

Overly optimistic sales and profit forecasts: By nature, entrepreneurs are optimistic about the future. But it’s good to temper that optimism a little when you’re planning, and make sure your forecasts are grounded in reality.
Spending too much time planning: Yes, planning is crucial. But you also need to get out and talk to customers, build prototypes of your product and figure out if there’s a market for your idea. Make sure to balance planning with building.
Not revising the plan: Planning is useful, but nothing ever goes exactly as planned. As you learn more about what’s working and what’s not—revise your plan, your budgets, and your revenue forecast. Doing so will provide a more realistic picture of where your business is going, and what your financial needs will be moving forward.
Not using the plan to manage your business: A good business plan is a management tool. Don’t just write it and put it on the shelf to collect dust – use it to track your progress and help you reach your goals.
Presenting your business plan

The planning process forces you to think through every aspect of your business and answer questions that you may not have thought of. That’s the real benefit of writing a business plan – the knowledge you gain about your business that you may not have been able to discover otherwise.

With all of this knowledge, you’re well prepared to convert your business plan into a pitch presentation to present your ideas.

A pitch presentation is a summary of your plan, just hitting the highlights and key points. It’s the best way to present your business plan to investors and team members.

Dig Deeper: Learn what key slides should be included in your pitch deck

Use your business plan to manage your business

One of the biggest benefits of planning is that it gives you a tool to manage your business better. With a revenue forecast, expense budget, and projected cash flow, you know your targets and where you are headed.

And yet, nothing ever goes exactly as planned – it’s the nature of business.

That’s where using your plan as a management tool comes in. The key to leveraging it for your business is to review it periodically and compare your forecasts and projections to your actual results.

Start by setting up a regular time to review the plan – a monthly review is a good starting point. During this review, answer questions like:

Did you meet your sales goals?
Is spending following your budget?
Has anything gone differently than what you expected?

Now that you see whether you’re meeting your goals or are off track, you can make adjustments and set new targets.

Maybe you’re exceeding your sales goals and should set new, more aggressive goals. In that case, maybe you should also explore more spending or hiring more employees.

Or maybe expenses are rising faster than you projected. If that’s the case, you would need to look at where you can cut costs.

A plan, and a method for comparing your plan to your actual results , is the tool you need to steer your business toward success.

Learn More: How to run a regular plan review

How to write a business plan FAQ

What is a business plan?

A document that describes your business , the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy, how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

What are the benefits of a business plan?

A business plan helps you understand where you want to go with your business and what it will take to get there. It reduces your overall risk, helps you uncover your business’s potential, attracts investors, and identifies areas for growth.

Having a business plan ultimately makes you more confident as a business owner and more likely to succeed for a longer period of time.

What are the 7 steps of a business plan?

The seven steps to writing a business plan include:

Write a brief executive summary
Describe your products and services.
Conduct market research and compile data into a cohesive market analysis.
Describe your marketing and sales strategy.
Outline your organizational structure and management team.
Develop financial projections for sales, revenue, and cash flow.
Add any additional documents to your appendix.

What are the 5 most common business plan mistakes?

There are plenty of mistakes that can be made when writing a business plan. However, these are the 5 most common that you should do your best to avoid:

1. Not taking the planning process seriously.
Having unrealistic financial projections or incomplete financial information.
Inconsistent information or simple mistakes.
Failing to establish a sound business model.
Not having a defined purpose for your business plan.

What questions should be answered in a business plan?

Writing a business plan is all about asking yourself questions about your business and being able to answer them through the planning process. You’ll likely be asking dozens and dozens of questions for each section of your plan.

However, these are the key questions you should ask and answer with your business plan:

How will your business make money?
Is there a need for your product or service?
Who are your customers?
How are you different from the competition?
How will you reach your customers?
How will you measure success?

How long should a business plan be?

The length of your business plan fully depends on what you intend to do with it. From the SBA and traditional lender point of view, a business plan needs to be whatever length necessary to fully explain your business. This means that you prove the viability of your business, show that you understand the market, and have a detailed strategy in place.

If you intend to use your business plan for internal management purposes, you don’t necessarily need a full 25-50 page business plan. Instead, you can start with a one-page plan to get all of the necessary information in place.

What are the different types of business plans?

While all business plans cover similar categories, the style and function fully depend on how you intend to use your plan. Here are a few common business plan types worth considering.

Traditional business plan: The tried-and-true traditional business plan is a formal document meant to be used when applying for funding or pitching to investors. This type of business plan follows the outline above and can be anywhere from 10-50 pages depending on the amount of detail included, the complexity of your business, and what you include in your appendix.

Business model canvas: The business model canvas is a one-page template designed to demystify the business planning process. It removes the need for a traditional, copy-heavy business plan, in favor of a single-page outline that can help you and outside parties better explore your business idea.

One-page business plan: This format is a simplified version of the traditional plan that focuses on the core aspects of your business. You’ll typically stick with bullet points and single sentences. It’s most useful for those exploring ideas, needing to validate their business model, or who need an internal plan to help them run and manage their business.

Lean Plan: The Lean Plan is less of a specific document type and more of a methodology. It takes the simplicity and styling of the one-page business plan and turns it into a process for you to continuously plan, test, review, refine, and take action based on performance. It’s faster, keeps your plan concise, and ensures that your plan is always up-to-date.

What’s the difference between a business plan and a strategic plan?

A business plan covers the “who” and “what” of your business. It explains what your business is doing right now and how it functions. The strategic plan explores long-term goals and explains “how” the business will get there. It encourages you to look more intently toward the future and how you will achieve your vision.

However, when approached correctly, your business plan can actually function as a strategic plan as well. If kept lean, you can define your business, outline strategic steps, and track ongoing operations all with a single plan.

Noah is the COO at Palo Alto Software, makers of the online business plan app LivePlan. He started his career at Yahoo! and then helped start the user review site Epinions.com. From there he started a software distribution business in the UK before coming to Palo Alto Software to run the marketing and product teams.

Table of Contents

Use AI to help write your plan
Common planning mistakes
Manage with your business plan

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Top 10 Employee Development Plan Examples to Help Your Team Grow

Discover the top 10 employee development plan examples to help your team grow and drive your business to the heights of success.

Investing in your employees’ transformation from average to exceptional is like building a valuable asset for your company. That's the reason an employee development plan is essential to create an environment where every member feels valued and motivated, resulting in working hard for your company's success.

Research reveals that 76% of employees prefer to stay in a company that frequently provides training for their growth. Considering the need, 47% of companies invest in career mentoring and coaching to boost employee retention. So, an employee development plan is a winning formula if you want to stay ahead of the curve. In this article, we will explore the top 10 employee development plan examples that will help you build a valuable workforce.

What is an Employee Development Plan?

The employee development plan is a roadmap designed to help employees grow professionally within the organization. These live documents, created collectively by employees and line managers, outline actionable steps, business goals, and milestones for growth.

This comprehensive growth plan encompasses various development programs, mentorships, and assignments that challenge individuals, push them to think outside the box, and enhance their capabilities. It also boosts employee critical thinking and fosters problem-solving skills.

The employee development plan benefits both employees and employers. Employees have clear goals and resources that will help them excel in their professional careers. Meanwhile, employers have a tangible way to support their team and equip them with the resources needed to reach their full potential and, in turn, work hard for the company's success.

Why is an Employee Development Plan Important?

According to the LinkedIn Global Talent Trends Report, 59% of employees listed professional development opportunities as a top area where organizations should invest in improving company culture. This shows that an employee development plan is more of a necessity to evolve and retain top talent in this competitive world.

Here are some more benefits of an employee career development plan:

1. Professional Development

A strong employee development plan helps employees in their professional careers, preventing learning stagnation that often comes during jobs. According to a Gallup report, 59% of millennials find growth opportunities at work highly critical, showing that skill development is more important for employees than ever.

2. Higher Employee Retention Rate

If employees feel that there's no growth opportunity in a job, they become demotivated and start looking for new challenges outside that fulfill their purpose. A survey reveals that lack of opportunities accounts for 37.1% of employee departures.

3. Enhanced Job Satisfaction

Employees who see a lot of growth potential in their jobs are more satisfied and committed to their company.

4. Increased Productivity

Employee development plans are not only for the benefit of employees but also for the organization's success. When equipped with top-level skills and knowledge, employees will perform better and be more productive.

5. Improving Business Performance

Providing development opportunities to your current employees is far better and cheaper than hiring new people every other day. Continuous learning and upskilling help build a strong team that actively participates in your company's success. Reports reveal that 66% of employers have seen higher ROI within one year of investing in upskilling their workforce.

Professional development's role in improving company culture.

Source: LinkedIn Talent Solutions

Top 10 Employee Development Plan Examples

A tailored employee development plan is crucial to meet the organization's unique needs. This approach addresses the various aspects of professional growth to create a skilled and valuable team. Here are the top 10 employee development plan examples to help your team grow:

1. Skill-based Employee Development Plan Examples

A skill-based development plan focuses on enhancing employees’ technical and soft skills. Examples of skill-based employee development plans include learning new software, improving communication skills, problem-solving skills, time management, and project management. These can be done through certification programs, hands-on training, or workshops led by experts.

With a detailed development plan for skill enhancement, employees feel a sense of satisfaction and confidence to meet new challenges. Furthermore, interacting with colleagues from different departments can help them exchange ideas, best practices, and insights, leading to a collaborative workforce.

2. Leadership Skills Development Plan

A key goal of a leadership development plan is to spot top and skilled talent and prepare them for future leadership roles within the organization. According to a Gartner survey, 60% of HR executives prioritize building leadership and management competencies for their company.

Employee development plan examples in leadership include team building, emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, and communication. These plans are implemented via seminars, workshops, coaching sessions, and mentorships under already skilled individuals. While training and knowledge are essential, hands-on practice helps grow your leadership skills.

Leadership skills as the top priority for HR executives.

‍ Source: Gartner.

3. Goal-Based Employee Development Plan Examples

A goal-based development plan empowers employees to set and meet certain milestones, objectives, and key results (OKRs).

It begins with identifying long-term goals, which are then broken down into smaller ones. Then, small goals are turned into individual objectives and key results. Next, employees are given to-do lists and resources to reach their goals.

Goal-based employee development plan examples encompass task prioritization, multitasking, deadline management, and productivity. Conduct seminars or some one-on-one effective training programs to help your employees excel at these tasks. Above all, collaboration between managers and employees is vital for the success of a development plan.

4. Performance-Based Employee Development Plan Examples

A performance-based development plan focuses on improving employees' existing skills that directly influence their performance. To achieve this, incorporate workshops, seminars, professional conferences, certification programs, and mentorships to help your employees develop expertise.

Regular feedback for performance is imperative to helping employees enhance their skills. For instance, if a sales manager struggles with communication, a development strategy should be devised to close this gap. According to a survey, 83% of employees appreciate receiving feedback from their managers to improve their work performance.

The main focus of companies in performance activities.

‍ Source: TRUELIST

5. Individual Employee Development Plan Examples (IDPs)

An Individual development plan is tailored to meet each employee’s needs, skills, and interests. It outlines a personalized roadmap for career advancement through courses, specific training programs, mentorship opportunities, and e-learning development services . Individual development plans enhance employee retention, engagement, and business performance and empower them to work confidently.

6. Ad Hoc Employee Development Plan Examples

An ad hoc growth plan is suitable for employees who want to learn unique skills and pursue degrees or certifications to increase their competitive advantage in career roles. This development plan is tailored to each employee's needs, improving job performance, satisfaction, and better career prospects. For example, an employee aspiring to take a degree in leadership while continuing his job can achieve this only through an ad hoc development plan.

By offering such plans, companies showcase their interest in their employees' growth, gaining long-term benefits in the form of employee retention and commitment to the company.

7. Cross-Functional Employee Development Plan Examples

A cross-functional employee development plan brings people from different departments together, allowing them to broaden their perspectives and experience. It's especially helpful to potential executives, as it gives them insights about what skills they need for career advancement. Creating this development plan involves coordinating with colleagues, rotations in different departments, organizing projects, and brainstorming sessions.

To evaluate what employees have learned, utilize assessment tools and take quizzes to better understand their performance. Assessing performance is not difficult with Coursebox.ai . You can use an AI quiz generator to create quizzes, and even your learners can get instant feedback based on your set criteria.

8. Objective-Based Employee Development Plan Examples

An objective-based development plan is based on the specific goals of the team and is aligned with the company's objectives. The team manager understands job goals or objectives and what employees are expected to do. Then, after identifying areas that need improvement, the manager creates a development plan for employees. By doing so, employees feel more motivated and empowered.

9. Succession Development Plan

A succession growth plan involves helping employees advance to higher positions within the organization. This development strategy is about identifying skilled members for future critical roles. To achieve this, take a holistic view of your organization's goals, ensuring you have talent available in the coming months or years.

According to a SHRM report , only 21% of HR professionals have a formal succession plan, while 24% have an informal one. Neglecting proper succession plans can damage the company's reputation and instill confusion and uncertainty among employees. A global survey showed that 53% of companies didn't have CEO succession plans, leading to significant disruption.

Industries most in need of succession planning

‍ Source: HBR

10. Skill Gap-Focused Employee Development Plan Examples

According to the McKinsey Report, 87% of companies know they have a skill gap or will have one in the coming years. That's why companies must work on filling these gaps through tailored skill gap-focused development plans.

It involves identifying areas your organization lacks and skills needed to meet future challenges. After that, create a plan to upskill your team to improve their performance. To make it successful, educate employees on the purpose of the training and how it's going to help them in the future.

An image showing 87% of companies have skill gaps.

‍ Source: Mckinsey

4-Step Employee Development Plan Framework

Creating a practical employee development plan needs a lot of planning. The key to it is setting SMART learning objectives (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound) that align with the company's goals. Here is a four-step framework to help your employees:

Step 1: Analyze Goals and Conduct a Thorough Self-assessment

The first, and most crucial, step is to analyze the goals and objectives of the company. Then, identify which skills are required in the future. Next comes the main part, where you assess employees’ skills, determine which areas need improvement, and start working on staff development ideas.

Step 2: Collaborate on Goal-setting

Collaboration between managers and employees is the key to creating a proper development plan. In fact, working on a goal setting collectively gets them on the same page. Employees feel a sense of ownership and are motivated to fulfill the goals they help in setting. On the other hand, managers get to know what it takes to achieve goals and support employees in reaching those goals.

Step 3: Identify Development Activities

Once the goals are set, the next step is identifying the necessary resources to help employees reach them. This may include certifications, diplomas, or degrees to help them achieve higher positions.

You can also consider connecting them to a senior mentor for one-on-one training or enrolling them in mentorship programs. Apart from these, consider online workshops, webinars, and online e-learning courses to turn their goals into reality.

Step 4: Monitor Progress and Review

When employees have started learning, the next step is to monitor their progress alongside. The best way is to utilize learning management systems like Coursebox to create, manage, and track online learning and improvement. You can also review where they stand through assessments and automatically issue achievement certificates.

Conclusion

Thus, a solid employee development plan is a win-win for both employees and managers. Managers get a highly skilled team, while employees excel in their career goals. But that's only possible when a company provides suitable resources, such as an environment, and learning platforms like Coursebox AI , to help its employees reach their full potential.

Coursebox AI is an all-in-one learning platform that can transform your team's learning experience into a super smooth and enjoyable one. You also don't need to worry about assessment, as it helps create quizzes and questionnaires instantly without any hassle.

Your company's future is in your hands; let Coursebox be your ally!

How to write a development plan for employees?

To write an employee development plan, first, you need to identify your organization's development plans or goals. After this, assess employees’ skills and check what’s lacking and needs attention. This leads to creating an individual development plan aligned with employees and the company's mutual interests.

What are your development plan examples?

Development plan of any company varies based on their preference and goals. At Coursebox.ai, our development plan examples include providing companies with e-learning development services, course creation using AI, quizzes and video generation and AI assessment.

What should we write in our development plan?

In a personal development plan, only you are responsible for your decisions, so accountability from your end is important to reaching your goals. First thing first—set your goals and prioritize them based on your needs. Set deadlines for yourself to reach them, keeping in mind all the distractions or threats you encounter along the way. Keep learning and improving your skills side by side and track your progress.

CMO at Coursebox AI

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17 SMART Sales Goals Examples for 2024 [With an Action Plan]

Sales goals are important.

Hit your goals, and you’re more likely to grow.

Fail to meet your sales goals though, and growth plateaus.

When we asked 138 sales professionals from different business verticals about their yearly revenue targets they achieved by September 2021, the response was alarming.

More than 60% of sales reps weren’t even close to achieving their yearly sales quota .

Sales goals target vs achievement poll statistics

A HubSpot survey reported similar results as nearly 40% of companies stated that they failed to achieve their sales goals in 2020.

Shocked? We were.

And it left us wondering if there’s a way to help people achieve their sales goals.

After all, we’re a sales execution platform.

Our goal is to help our customers achieve their sales goals.

So, we decided to put together a easy to follow action plan for companies to achieve their sales goals.

Here we go!

What are sales goals?

Sales goals are the objectives a company or a team wants to achieve in a given time. It gives sales teams a roadmap of what they need to do to help their company achieve specific targets.

There can be different types of sales goals. For example, revenue goals, customer acquisition goals, customer retention goals, and more. For example,

Increase sales revenue by 15% in the next quarter.
$15,000 in sales revenue per representative per month.
Increase customer acquisition rate by 10%.

Reduce customer defection rate by 3% in the next year.

Reduce the churn rate to 5%.
ACV of $180k per sales rep in 2024.
Make 40 cold calls per day.
Reduce response time to a maximum of 4 minutes.

In the subsequent sections, we will discuss sales goals examples in detail. But first, let’s look at why it is necessary to set up goals.

Why create sales goals?

Simply put, those who have goals are 10 times more successful than those without them.

And those who have written goals are 3 times more successful than those with unwritten goals.

Interesting, right?

But does this happen in reality?

I’m worried; it doesn’t.

Whether it’s a personal or professional goal, we fail because we don’t know what we’re doing and why.

Let’s look at it from an organization’s perspective.

Many individuals contribute to the organization’s goals.

For example, to achieve $$ revenue goals of a company, every team member is assigned a target, and they work towards achieving them.

Seems pretty straightforward, isn’t it?

But it’s not.

In reality, you’ll find a lot of moving parts between planning and execution.

Let’s say you’ve set sales goals for the coming year.

You have also set up your team and assigned them tasks. But, in the middle of the quarter, one of your team members decides to switch. In that case, if you don’t take appropriate action in time, the goal you’ve set will be in jeopardy.

That’s why setting up sales goals, having an action plan and tracking progress is important.

But not just any goals. The goals you set for your team must be SMART.

Let’s discuss the components of a SMART sales goal in detail.

How to create SMART sales goals

In the context of sales goals, SMART refers to:

Specific: The goals should clearly define the expectations
Measurable: The metrics and criteria you define for the goals should be measurable
Attainable: The goals should be challenging yet attainable
Relevant: Makes sense for your business and team
Time-bound: Should have a timeline to accomplish them

Here’s an example of a SMART sales goal.

Specific: Your goal is to acquire 600 customers by the end of March 2024. It’s specific and sets a target.

Measurable: You know that you’ll have to make 40 calls per day (assuming 1 in 4 prospects you call converts).

So, 10 customers per day for 60 working days = 600 customers in 3 months.

Note, you can easily measure the number of calls made per day.

Attainable: Making 40 calls in a day is doable. Setting a target of 100 calls is unrealistic.

Relevant: It should fit with the mission of your company. In this case, it makes sense if your sales process depends on cold calling.

Time-bound: 40 calls per day until March 2024 gives a clear timeline to achieve the goal.

Now follow these steps to define and execute your sales goals.

3 Steps to create successful sales goals

Let’s break it down into three main steps:

Define goals

Create an action plan

Track performance, define your goals.

You’ll need to define (set) goals:

1. To track metrics: You must set goals on metrics that are important for your business growth. For example, lead generated, the number of calls or meetings scheduled, the number of deals closed, etc.

2. Across the organization’s hierarchy : In an organization, team members will have different roles and KRAs. So, you must set goals and KPIs for individuals as well. For example, revenue targets may not be relevant to the graphic designer.

3. For various cycles : Different KPIs have different timelines. For example, revenue goals are measured on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis. Whereas lead generation goals are measured on a daily/weekly basis.

The goals you define should be fact-based . It shouldn’t be based on whims.

You should evaluate your previous year’s performance, average order value, conversion rate, sales cycle , resources, etc., and accordingly set a realistic goal.

Note that a goal without an action plan is just another new year resolution – unattended and unaccomplished.

So, the next step is to put your plan into action.

An action plan is a well-defined description of goals. It describes the steps that need to be carried out to achieve the goal within a specified time.

For example, if your goal is to bring $100k in revenues next year, your action plan should look like this:

1. Form a team for different aspects of your sales process , such as:

Lead generation (marketing)
Lead qualification (SDRs)
Inside sales for follow ups.

2. Define KPIs for teams and individuals

Marketing should generate at least X leads/week
Every SDR (Sales development representative) must do Y discovery calls per day and qualify leads
The inside sales team must nurture and add Z qualified leads to the pipeline per week.
The sales representatives or account executives must follow up and close XY deals per month.
Assign goals to the individuals.
Equip your teams with the required tools and technology to help them in their day-to-day tasks.

Once the team members are on the same page, know their goals, and are ready to perform, the next thing you must do is track the progress.

As we said, there are several moving parts between planning and execution. Sometimes you might fall short of resources, while other times, external factors like competition, socio-political or environmental conditions might disrupt your business.

That’s why you need to keep a tab on the sales metrics and whether or not you’re on track to achieve your goals.

Now, if you plan to do this manually, you’ll end up deploying more resources in data crunching.

Instead, you can use CRM software to manage your leads, sales reps, and more in one place. With this, you can also generate automated reports and dashboards to keep an eye on the achievements.

So, now you know what’s happening in your team. How far you are from achieving your sales goals. If the destination seems hazy, the obvious step you must take is – improve.

Improve performance

Keeping a tab on sales KPIs will help you spot underachievers and overachievers. While the strategies of star performers can inspire others, training and support can help underachievers.

The following are the ways to improve your team members’ performances.

Nudges : Motivate users at the right time using relevant nudges via web notifications, mobile, and emails.
Gamification : Inspire your teams to perform more, break the records using leaderboards , incentives (e.g., SPIFF ), and more.

So, now you know how to create and execute goals. Let’s look at the sales goals examples you can use for your business.

17 SMART sales goals examples

Revenue goals are the targets to increase the gross or net profits of the company. They reflect the cash flow a business needs to generate each year to cover all expenses while making profits. Revenue goals can be set for a team, region, or product line for a specific timeline.

Here are some examples.

$15,000 in sales revenue for each representative per month.
Generate $1.2M in 2024 from Alaska.

Sales goals examples - revenue target vs achievement

2. Unit sales

This sales goal applies to all businesses that sell physical products or services. You can set a quota for your sales team to achieve within a timeline.

For example, you can set a sales goal of 100 units per week for your sales reps .

3. Customer acquisition

Companies drive revenues from both – new and existing customers. Customer acquisition as a sales goal focuses solely on acquiring (gaining) new customers.

Increase customer acquisition rate by 10% per quarter.
Acquire 100k new customers from Florida.

4. Lower the customer acquisition cost

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the total cost you incur to acquire a customer. When your CAC is lower, you can make more profit from a sale.

CAC involves all costs like-

Wages and commissions of sales reps
Calling costs
Marketing and sales expenses
Tools and software costs

To calculate CAC, divide the total cost of acquiring customers by the number of customers acquired.

That is, if you spend $100 to acquire 100 customers in a year, your CAC is $1.

You can create sales goals to lower the CAC.

Reduce the customer acquisition cost to 80% by next quarter.

You can also refer to the following industry benchmarks for the CAC .

Average customer acquisition cost by industry statistics

5. Market share

Usually, large enterprises and aggressive start-ups target market share as a sales goal. For instance, you must have heard of Amazon’s relentless strategies to capture market share across several segments.

6. Customer retention

Customer retention refers to the activities to reduce customer defections.

In contrast, customer defection rate is the number of customers who cancel their subscription or stop making regular purchases. The lower the defection rate, the higher is your customer retention and spend.

An example of this goal could be:

7. Improve NPS

NPS or Net Promoter Score is an important sales KPI to boost customer loyalty and retention.

It indicates customer satisfaction and the likelihood of customers to recommend your products or services to others.

Reduce detractors by 5%
Increase promoters by 5%

Note that assigning absolute number targets for NPS may lead to score-begging. So, instead, assign relative targets to your reps to understand if you’re actually improving the service quality or not.

8. Reduce customer churn

Customer churn is the number of customers who stopped using your company’s product or service during a certain period.

Churn is unavoidable.

However, if your churn rate is above the industry average, you should be alarmed.

You must find out why your customers churn and ways to make them stay.

Anything like competitor pricing, new market entrants, outdated product features, poor customer service, etc., could lead to churn. But sustainable brands ensure a balance between customer acquisition and retention.

For example, you can set goals to reduce the churn rate to 5%.

9. Customer lifetime value

A customer lifetime value (CLV) is a long-term prediction of the future values of your customers’ interactions.

It is an important business metric that measures how much a business can earn from the average customer over the course of the relationship.

Increasing CLV as a sales goal looks something like this:

Increase the average customer lifetime value from $80k to $100k.
Increase the average customer relationship period from 3 years to 5 years.

10. Annual contract value

Annual contract value or ACV is the average annual revenue generated from each customer contract.

Businesses that depend on subscriptions or rentals can use the annual contract value to set targets and commissions.

You can multiply the monthly target of a rep in his annual contract value to get the final value.

So, if a rep’s monthly target is $15,000, then annual contract value is $15,000 x 12 = $1,80,000. You can also include one-time sales in the yearly contract value.

ACV of $6 million from North America in 2024.

11. Lead generation goals/prospecting

Qualified leads are more likely to convert. The more qualified leads you get, the more deals you can close . You can set a target for your sales team to generate, say, 50 qualified leads per month with at least 75% on the qualification score .

12. Sales cycle goals

A sales cycle refers to the time it takes to convert a lead into a customer. Companies that have shorter sales cycles sell more and earn more revenues.

Let’s say your sales cycle is 6 weeks. You can set a goal to cut it down to 4.5 weeks.

Note that some industries incur longer sales cycles . So be aware of the optimum sales cycle for your business to create a sales cycle goal.

13. Sales activities: email marketing

You can turn the activities of your reps or sales team into targets. These are applicable when you set goals for people down the organizational hierarchy.

Here are some examples of email marketing goals.

Increase demo sign-ups from email campaigns by 20%.
Hit 5% email open rate target.

For this, you’ll need to track email KPIs closely.

You can either use email marketing software or CRM software like LeadSquared that supports marketing campaigns.

The following screenshot illustrates how LeadSquared CRM helps you keep an eye on your email metrics and devise strategies to improve them.

email open rate statistics by hours of day

14. Sales activities: cold calling

Similar to the above sales goals example, you can give cold calling targets to your inside sales teams. For example,

Increase cold calling by 20 leads per day.

You can also use LeadSquared CRM software to manage contacts and cold calling activities on a single platform.

retail sales goals examplesTarget and achievement reports

15. Sales activities: speed-to-lead

Speed-to-lead, or the average lead response time , is the average time it takes for a sales rep to respond to an inbound lead.

It is advised to contact a lead within 5 minutes of the inquiry. Not doing so decreases the odds of qualifying the lead by 80% .

So, improving lead response time or increasing the speed-to-lead can be a sales goal for an individual. Here are some examples.

Increase speed-to-lead by 50%

If you’re wondering if this is a call-center metric , you’re wrong.

Speed-to-lead as a sales goal applies to all sales and customer service departments.

16. Sales activities: meetings/demos

Again, this is an individual sales goal, generally given to the SDR (Sales Development Representatives) teams.

The aim is to build a sales pipeline for the account executives. For example, you can give your reps a target to schedule 20 meetings per week .

17. Business expansion goals

Business expansion goals are similar to the revenue and market share goals but with a strong focus on the region. For example,

Drive $6 million ARR from the United States in 2024.
Capture 40% consumer durable market share in Texas by 2025.

So, these were some of the sales goals examples that you can set for your teams.

However, it’s essential to use software to track sales goals and measure every individual’s contribution towards achieving those goals.

I’d like to share a story of how LeadSquared helped a leading travel booking company track its sales performances.

How LeadSquared helped a leading travel company plan and act on sales goals

One of our customers in the travel segment was facing challenges in creating sales goals and monitoring them. The problem became serious when they started expanding across geographics.

Some of the pressing challenges were:

Managing employees and tracking their progress /work log on excel sheets was ineffective
Data loss due to multiple sheets and inconsistent data flow across systems.
Monitoring achievements on the whiteboard was just not right.
The management wasn’t able to track individual and team performances .

“Keeping track of our agents’ conversations, monitoring our teams, and evaluation of productivity became tedious as the operations scaled,” says the company’s Inside Sales Head.

After implementing LeadSquared, the management was able to set clear objectives for the team. Monitoring them regularly helped them improve critical business metrics. The main functional areas that contributed to increased sales efficiency are:

Setting up talk time targets
Setting up meeting activity targets
Tracking lead activities

With LeadSquared, they were able to:

The process to set up sales goals for your teams


For various sales cycles	Performances	Through nudges
To track sales KPIs	Lead and lag metrics	By tracking near-real-time reports
Across the organization’s hierarchy

“We were able to configure all the required targets for our team like how many leads we are getting, what actioning has been done, what is conversion rate, how many leads have been closed by the team w.r.t their target. Being able to configure all different kinds of targets makes goals a very critical feature for us now,” says the company’s spokesperson.

In conclusion

While setting up sales goals gives clarity and direction to organizational success, tracking progress ensures that you have everything you need to achieve your goals.

If you have a plan but are not able to track progress, it’s high time to invest in a tool that helps you just do that. And while you do, do check out LeadSquared sales performance suite. LeadSquared has helped leading organizations like BYJU’S, Dunzo, and many more achieve and exceed their sales goals. To see it in action,

Nidhi is a content writer/editor at LeadSquared. She works closely with sales professionals and senior management to bring their outlook into her write-ups. Connect with her on LinkedIn or write to her at [email protected].

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The full list of major US companies slashing staff this year, from Tesla and Lucid Motors to Google and Paramount

Last year's job cuts weren't the end of layoffs . Further reductions continue in 2024.
Companies like GM, Tesla , Google, Microsoft, Nike, and Dell have announced plans for cuts.
See the list of companies reducing their worker numbers in 2024.

After a brutal year of layoffs in 2023 , companies this year have continued to cut jobs across tech, media, finance, manufacturing, and retail.

Tech titans like IBM, Google , and Microsoft; finance leaders like Goldman Sachs, Citi, and BlackRock; entertainment behemoths like Pixar and Paramount; and corporate giants like Tesla, Dow, and Nike have all announced layoffs. In August, automotive companies Stellantis and GM joined the mix, with the latter laying off more than 1,000 employees, primarily in its software business.

A survey in late December of last year said nearly 40% of business leaders had expected layoffs this year, ResumeBuilder said . ResumeBuilder talked to about 900 leaders at organizations with more than 10 employees. Half of those surveyed cited concerns about a recession as a reason for potential layoffs.

Another major factor survey respondents cited was artificial intelligence. Around four in 10 leaders said they would conduct layoffs as they replace workers with AI . Dropbox, Google, and IBM have already announced job cuts related to AI.

Here are the dozens of companies with job cuts planned or already underway in 2024.

Nike's up-to-$2 billion cost-cutting plan will involve severances.

Nike announced its cost-cutting plans in a December 2023 earnings call, discussing a slow growth in sales. The call subsequently resulted in Nike's stock plunging .

"We are seeing indications of more cautious consumer behavior around the world," Nike Chief Financial Officer Matt Friend said in December.

Google laid off hundreds more workers in 2024.

On January 10, Google laid off hundreds of workers in its central engineering division and members of its hardware teams — including those working on its voice-activated assistant.

In an email to some affected employees, the company encouraged them to consider applying for open positions at Google if they want to remain employed. According to the email, April 9 will be the last day for those unable to secure a new position.

The tech giant laid off thousands throughout 2023, beginning with a 6% reduction of its global workforce (about 12,000 people) last January.

Discord is laying off 170 employees.

Discord employees learned about the layoffs in an all-hands meeting and a memo sent by CEO Jason Citron in early January.

"We grew quickly and expanded our workforce even faster, increasing by 5x since 2020," Citron said in the memo. "As a result, we took on more projects and became less efficient in how we operated."

In August 2023, Discord reduced its headcount by 4%. According to CNBC , the company was valued at $15 billion in 2021 .

Citi will cut 20,000 from its staff as part of its corporate overhaul.

The layoffs announced in January are part of a larger Citigroup initiative to restructure the business and could leave the company with a remaining head count of 180,000 — excluding its Mexico operations.

In an earnings call that month, the bank said that layoffs could save the company up to $2.5 billion after it suffered a "very disappointing" final quarter last year.

Amazon-owned Twitch also announced job cuts.

Twitch announced on January 10 that it would cut 500 jobs, affecting over a third of the employees at the live-streaming company.

CEO Dan Clancy announced the layoffs in a memo, telling staff that while the company has tried to cut costs, the operation is "meaningfully" bigger than necessary.

"As you all know, we have worked hard over the last year to run our business as sustainably as possible," Clancy wrote. "Unfortunately, we still have work to do to rightsize our company and I regret having to share that we are taking the painful step to reduce our headcount by just over 500 people across Twitch."

BlackRock is planning to cut 3% of its staff.

Larry Fink, BlackRock's chief executive , and Rob Kapito, the firm's president, announced in January that the layoffs would affect around 600 people from its workforce of about 20,000.

However, the company has plans to expand in other areas to support growth in its overseas markets.

"As we prepare for 2024 and this very exciting but distinctly different landscape, businesses across the firm have developed plans to reallocate resources," the company leaders said in a memo.

Rent the Runway is slashing 10% of its corporate jobs as part of a restructuring.

In the fashion company's January announcement, COO and president Anushka Salinas said she will also be leaving the firm, Fast Company reported.

Unity Software is eliminating 25% of its workforce.

Around 1,800 jobs at the video game software company will be affected by the layoffs announced, Reuters reported in January.

eBay is cutting 1,000 jobs.

In a January 23 memo, CEO Jamie Iannone told employees that the eBay layoffs will affect about 9% of the company's workforce.

Iannone told employees that layoffs were necessary as the company's "overall headcount and expenses have outpaced the growth of our business."

The company also plans to scale back on contractors.

Microsoft is reducing its headcount by 1,900 at Activision, Xbox, and ZeniMax.

In late January, nearly three months after Microsoft acquired video game firm Activision Blizzard , the company announced layoffs in its gaming divisions. The layoffs mostly affect employees at Activision Blizzard.

"As we move forward in 2024, the leadership of Microsoft Gaming and Activision Blizzard is committed to aligning on a strategy and an execution plan with a sustainable cost structure that will support the whole of our growing business," Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said in a memo obtained by The Verge .

The cuts come a year after the tech giant announced it was reducing its workforce by 10,000 employees. It then slashed a further 1,000 roles across sales and customer service teams in July 2023.

Salesforce is cutting 700 employees across the company, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Salesforce announced a round of layoffs that the company says will affect 1% of its global workforce, The Journal reported in late January.

The cuts followed a wave of cuts at the cloud giant last year. In 2023, Marc Benioff's company laid off about 10% of its total workforce — or roughly 7,000 jobs. The CEO said the company over-hired during the pandemic.

Flexport lays off 15% of its workers.

In late January, the US logistics startup laid off 15% of its staff which is around 400 workers.

The move came after Flexport founder and CEO Ryan Petersen initiated a 20% reduction of its workforce of an estimated 2,600 employees in October.

Flexport kicked off 2024 with the announcement that it raised $260 million from Shopify and made "massive progress toward returning Flexport to profitability."

iRobot is laying off around 350 employees and founder Colin Angle will step down as chairman and CEO.

The company behind the Roomba Vacuum announced layoffs in late January around the same time Amazon decided not to go through with its proposed acquisition of the company, the Associated Press reported .

UPS will cut 12,000 jobs in 2024.

The UPS layoffs will affect 14% of the company's 85,000 managers and could save the company $1 billion in 2024, UPS CEO Carol Tomé said during a January earnings call.

Paypal CEO Alex Chriss announced the company would lay off 9% of its workforce.

Announced in late January, this round of layoffs will affect about 2,500 employees at the payment processing company.

"We are doing this to right-size our business, allowing us to move with the speed needed to deliver for our customers and drive profitable growth," CEO Alex Chriss wrote in a January memo . "At the same time, we will continue to invest in areas of the business we believe will create and accelerate growth."

Okta is cutting roughly 7% of its workforce.

The digital-access-management company announced its plans for a "restructuring plan intended to improve operating efficiencies and strengthen the Company's commitment to profitable growth" in an SEC filing in February.

The cuts will impact roughly 400 employees.

Okta CEO Todd McKinnon told staff in a memo that "costs are still too high," CNBC reported .

Snap has announced more layoffs.

The company behind Snapchat announced in February that it's reducing its global workforce by 10%, according to an SEC filing .

Estée Lauder said it will eliminate up to 3,100 positions.

The cosmetics company announced in February that it would be cutting 3% to 5% of its roles as part of a restructuring plan.

Estee Lauder reportedly employed about 62,000 employees around the world as of June 30, 2023.

DocuSign is eliminating roughly 6% of its workforce as part of a restructuring plan.

The electronic signature company said in an SEC filing in February that most of the cuts will be in its sales and marketing divisions.

Zoom is slashing 150 jobs.

The latest reduction announced in February amounts to about 2% of its workforce.

Paramount Global is laying off 800 employees days after record-breaking Super Bowl.

In February, Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish sent a memo to employees announcing that 800 jobs — about 3% of its workforce — were being cut.

Deadline obtained the memo less than a month after reporting plans for layoffs at Paramount. The announcement comes on the heels of Super Bowl LVIII reaching record-high viewership across CBS, Paramount+, and Nickelodeon, and Univision.

Morgan Stanley is trimming its wealth management division by hundreds of staffers.

Morgan Stanley is laying off several hundred employees in its wealth-management division, the Wall Street Journal reported in February, representing roughly 1% of the team.

The wealth-management division has seen some slowdown in recent months, with net new assets down by about 8% from a year ago. The layoffs mark the first major move by newly-installed CEO Ted Pick, who took the reins from James Gorman on January 1.

Expedia Group is cutting more than 8% of its workforce.

Cutbacks part of an operational review at online travel giant Expedia Group are expected to impact 1,500 roles this year, a company spokesperson told BI.

The company's product and technology division is set to be the worst hit, a report from GeekWire said , citing an internal memo CEO Peter Kern sent to employees in late February.

"While this review will result in the elimination of some roles, it also allows the company to invest in core strategic areas for growth," the spokesperson said.

"Consultation with local employee representatives, where applicable, will occur before making any final decisions," they added.

Sony is laying off 900 workers

The cuts at Sony Interactive Entertainment swept through its game-making teams at PlayStation Studios.

Insomniac Games, which developed the hit Spider-Man video game series, as well as Naughty Dog, the developers behind Sony's flagship 'The Last of Us' video games' were hit by the cuts, the company announced on February 27.

All of PlayStation's London studio will be shuttered, according to the proposal.

"Delivering and sustaining social, online experiences – allowing PlayStation gamers to explore our worlds in different ways – as well as launching games on additional devices such as PC and Mobile, requires a different approach and different resources," PlayStation Studios boss Hermen Hulst wrote.

Hulst added that some games in development will be shut down, though he didn't say which ones.

In early February, Sony said it missed its target for selling PlayStation 5 consoles. The earnings report sent shares tumbling and the company's stock lost about $10 billion in value.

Bumble is slashing 30% of its workforce

On February 27, the dating app company announced that it would be reducing its staff due to "future strategic priorities" for its business, per a statement.

The cuts will impact about 30% of its about 1,200 person workforce or about 350 roles, a representative for Bumble told BI by email.

"We are taking significant and decisive actions that ensure our customers remain at the center of everything we do as we relaunch Bumble App, transform our organization and accelerate our product roadmap," Bumble Inc CEO Lidiane Jones said in a statement.

Electronic Arts is reducing its workforce by 5%

Electronic Arts is laying off about 670 workers, equating to 5% of its workforce, Bloomberg reported in late February. The gaming firm axed two mobile games earlier in February, which it described as a difficult decision in a statement issued to GamesIndustry.biz. CEO Andrew Wilson reportedly told employees in a memo that it would be "moving away from development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry." Wilson also said in the memo that the cuts came as a result of shifting customer needs and a refocusing of the company, Bloomberg reported.

IBM cutting staff in marketing and communications

IBM's chief communications officer Jonathan Adashek told employees on March 12 that it would be cutting staff, CNBC reported, citing a source familiar with the matter. An IBM spokesperson told Business Insider in a statement that the cuts follow a broader workforce action the company announced during its earnings call in January.

"In 4Q earnings earlier this year, IBM disclosed a workforce rebalancing charge that would represent a very low single-digit percentage of IBM's global workforce, and we expect to exit 2024 at roughly the same level of employment as we entered with," they said. IBM has also been clear about the impact of AI on its workforce . Last May, IBM's CEO Arvind Krishna said the company expected to pause hiring on roles that could be replaced by AI, especially in areas like human resources and other non-consumer-facing departments.

"I could easily see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period," Krishna told Bloomberg at the time.

Amazon is laying off hundreds in its cloud division in yet another round of cuts this year

Amazon is cutting hundreds of jobs from its cloud division known as Amazon Web Services , Bloomberg reported on April 3.

The reduction will impact employees on the sales and marketing team and those working on tech for its retail stores, Bloomberg reported.

"We've identified a few targeted areas of the organization we need to streamline in order to continue focusing our efforts on the key strategic areas that we believe will deliver maximum impact," an Amazon spokesperson told Bloomberg.

On March 26, Amazon announced another round of job cuts after the company said it was slashing 'several hundred' jobs at its Prime Video and MGM Studios divisions earlier this year to refocus on more profitable products.

"We've identified opportunities to reduce or discontinue investments in certain areas while increasing our investment and focus on content and product initiatives that deliver the most impact," Mike Hopkins, SVP of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, told employees in January.

This year's cuts follow the largest staff layoff in the company's history. In 2023, the tech giant laid off 18,000 workers.

Apple has cut over 700 employees across its self-driving car, displays, and services groups

Apple slashed its California workforce by more than 600 employees in April.

The cuts came after Apple decided to withdraw from its car and smartwatch display projects.

The tech giant filed a series of notices to comply with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification program. One of the addresses was linked to a new display development office, while the others were for the company's EV effort, Bloomberg reported .

Apple officially shut down its decadelong EV project in February. At the time, Bloomberg reported that some employees would move to generative AI, but others would be laid off.

Bloomberg noted that the layoffs were likely an undercount of the full scope of staff cuts, as Apple had staff working on these projects in other locations.

In late August, Bloomberg reported that Apple was slashing 100 jobs in its services group, citing people familiar with the matter.

The layoffs mainly involved people working on the Apple Books app and the Apple Bookstore, Bloomberg reported. Cuts were also made to other service teams like Apple News, the outlet added.

Representatives for Apple did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside normal business hours.

Tesla is laying off over 10% of its workforce

Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent a memo to employees Sunday, April 14, at nearly midnight in California, informing them of the company's plan to cut over 10% of its global workforce.

In his companywide memo , Musk cited "duplication of roles and job functions in certain areas" as the reason behind the reductions.

An email sent to terminated employees obtained by BI read: "Effective now, you will not need to perform any further work and therefore will no longer have access to Tesla systems and physical locations."

On April 29, Musk reportedly sent an email stating the need for more layoffs at Tesla . He also announced the departure of two executives and said that their reports would also be let go. Six known Tesla executives have left the company since layoffs began in April.

Grand Theft Auto 6 publisher Take-Two Interactive is reducing its workforce by 5%

Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar Games, said on April 16 that it would be "eliminating several projects" and reducing its workforce by about 5%.

The move — a part of its larger "cost reduction program" — will cost the video game publisher up to $200 million. It's expected to be completed by December 31.

As of March 2023, the company said it employed approximately 11,580 full-time workers.

Peloton is reducing its staff by 15% as the CEO steps down as well

Peloton CEO Barry McCarthy is stepping down, the company announced May 2. Along with his departure, the fitness company is also laying off about 400 workers.

McCarthy is leaving his role just two years after replacing John Foley as CEO and president in 2022. Peloton said the changes are expected to reduce annual expenses by over $200 million by the end of fiscal 2025 as part of a larger restructuring plan.

Microsoft-owned Xbox is cutting more jobs

Xbox is offering some employees voluntary severance packages in May after shutting three units and absorbing a fourth earlier in the month. Microsoft had already made cuts to the division at the start of 2024.

According to Bloomberg , the offers were extended to producers, quality assurance testers, and more staff at Xbox-owned ZeniMax. Others across the Xbox organization were told that more cuts are coming.

Xbox president Matt Booty told staff in a May 8 town hall that the studio closures are part of an effort to free up more resources, Bloomberg reported.

Indeed is cutting 1,000 workers after laying off 2,200 a year ago

Careers site Indeed says it will lay off roughly 1,000 employees , or 8% of its workforce, as it looks to simplify its organization.

CEO Chris Hyams took responsibility for "how we got here" in a memo in May but said the company is not yet set up for growth after last year's global hiring slowdown caused multiple quarters of declining sales.

Hyams said the latest cuts will be more concentrated in the US and primarily affect R&D and Go-to-Market teams. That's in contrast to last year's across-the-board reduction of 2,200 workers.

Walmart is axing hundreds of corporate jobs

Retail giant Walmart is cutting hundreds of corporate jobs and asking remote employees to come to work, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Workers in smaller offices, such as those in Dallas, Atlanta, and Toronto, are also being asked to move to central locations like Walmart's corporate headquarters in Arkansas or those in New Jersey or California, the Journal reported.

Under Armour is slashing an unspecified number of jobs, incurring $22 million in severance costs

Under Armour confirmed it was conducting layoffs in its quarterly earnings report, which was released May 16.

The company said it will pay out employee severance and benefits expenses of roughly $15 million in cash-related and $7 million in non-cash charges this year related to a restructuring plan, with close to half of that occurring in the current fiscal quarter.

"This is not where I envisaged Under Armour playing at this point in our journey," CEO Kevin Plank told investors on the company's full-year earnings call. "That said, we'll use this turbulence to reconstitute our brand and business, giving athletes, retail customers and shareholders bigger and better reasons to care about and believe in Under Armour's potential."

Pixar cuts about 175 people in pivot back to feature films

Disney's Pixar Animation Studios is cutting 175 people, about 14% of its staff, Reuters reported .

The cuts started on May 21 as the studio returns to its focus on feature-length movies. Former Disney CEO Bob Chapek, who was axed in 2022, had increased staff across studios to create more content for the company's streaming service, Disney+.

Pixar cut 75 jobs last year , Reuters previously reported, part of a larger restructuring across Disney.

Lucid Motors is slashing around 400 jobs.

In a regulatory filing, Lucid Motors said it would lay off about 400 employees as part of a restructuring plan that should be complete by the end of the third quarter.

"I'm confident Lucid will deliver the world's best SUV and dramatically expand our total addressable market, but we aren't generating revenue from the program yet," CEO Peter Rawlinson said in an email to employees obtained by TechCrunch.

The cuts come ahead of Lucid's launch of its first electric SUV later this year. It comes over a year after the California-based company laid off 1,300 employees, TechCrunch previously reported .

Walgreens is planning store closures that could lead to job cuts

Drugstore chain Walgreens is planning to close unprofitable stores over the next three years, according to the Wall Street Journal.

CEO Tim Wentworth told the Journal that Walgreens hoped to limit job cuts by reassigning staff at closing stores to other locations. Walgreens is reviewing about one-quarter of its 8,600 US stores as it decides which to shutter, he said.

John Deere is laying off over 600 employees

John Deere, maker of the iconic green-and-yellow tractors, is laying off over 600 employees at factories in Illinois and Iowa, the AP reported July 1.

In May, John Deere said sales fell for the third consecutive quarter and projected that the declines would continue in the second half of its fiscal year.

Burberry is expected to cut 100s of jobs

London-based luxury retailer Burberry is expected to cut hundreds of jobs in the coming weeks, the Telegraph reported July 6.

Employees learned about the cuts in late June when they were told in a Zoom meeting that their roles could be eliminated or that they would need to apply for other jobs, according to the Telegraph.

Intuit announced cuts on July 10

Intuit announced on July 10 that it's cutting its workforce by 10% . The layoffs will affect 1,800 employees nationwide, but the company plans to hire 1,800 new employees in "key areas" like engineering, InvestorPlace reports.

The refocus on other areas is following a shift in focus on AI within the company, according to the outlet.

Intuit's stock dropped by 4.01% on July 10 after the company announced the layoffs.

Tinder parent Match group plans to cut 6% of jobs

Tinder and Hinge parent company Match Group said on July 30 that it will reduce about 6% of its global workforce, or about 156 employees, because it is exiting the live streaming business.

Match will be removing the live streaming service in its app Plenty of Fish and will sunset the Hakuna app, which focuses on Korea and Japan.

The reduction in workforce is expected to save the company $13 million in annual costs.

Disney cuts 140 jobs across its TV division

Disney is making cuts across its TV division, Deadline and Bloomberg reported, to the tune of roughly 140 jobs — or 2% of the staff at Disney Entertainment Television (DET).

Layoffs will impact National Geographic, owned television stations, the marketing and publicity departments, and Freeform, per a source close to the matter, which notes no teams have been eliminated.

While Disney's cable TV business generates billions, it's on the decline, Bloomberg reports, and the company is seeking to cut costs.

Last year, Disney slashed 7,000 jobs across multiple rounds of layoffs as part of a strategy implemented by returning CEO Bob Iger.

Intel plans to eliminate thousands of jobs

Intel plans to cut thousands of jobs in response to a second-quarter earnings slump, Bloomberg reported earlier this week , citing unnamed people familiar with the move.

It was officially announced on Thursday, August 1, as it posted Q2 earnings. The company intends to reduce its workforce by 15% by the end of 2024.

"Our Q2 financial performance was disappointing, even as we hit key product and process technology milestones," Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said in a statement. "Second-half trends are more challenging than we previously expected, and we are leveraging our new operating model to take decisive actions that will improve operating and capital efficiencies while accelerating our IDM 2.0 transformation."

Intel's stock was down following the lackluster earnings.

The layoffs come after the chip maker laid off about 5% of its workforce last year, bringing its head count down to around 124,000, Bloomberg reported.

During the last round of layoffs, announced in October 2022, Intel faced a drop in demand for processors for personal computers and estimated the layoffs would save $10 billion in costs by 2025, per Bloomberg.

Intel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

WW International is cutting jobs in corporate

Diet program creator WW International, formerly WeightWatchers, plans to lay off employees, it said in an earnings call on August 1.

The company did not specify the number of jobs it will cut. But the layoffs will largely focus on corporate positions, including a 40% cut in roles above and at the vice president level.

The cuts are expected to save the company $60 million, the company's chief financial officer said.

Dell is cutting sales jobs in new focus on AI products

Dell is cutting jobs on its sales team, Bloomberg reported on Monday. It wasn't immediately clear how many jobs Dell planned to eliminate.

In a memo announcing the cuts, company executives said that the choice was part of a restructuring to focus more on selling AI products and data center services, Bloomberg reported.

Dell did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI, but a spokesman told Bloomberg: "Through a reorganization of our go-to-market teams and an ongoing series of actions, we are becoming a leaner company."

Paramount Global announced it plans to slash 15% of its US workforce

Paramount Global is planning to cut about 2,000 jobs ahead of its merger with Skydance Media, CNBC reported.

The company identified $500 million in cost savings as it prepared to join forces with Skydance, totalling about 15% of its US workforce, according to the outlet.

The cuts will begin in a few weeks and will mostly be finished by the end of 2024. Paramount employees in marketing and communications, finance, legal, technology, and other support functions have been targeted, the company said in a Thursday earnings call.

The cuts come about a month after Paramount agreed to merge with Skydance. Paramount shares jumped more than 5% after hours on Thursday.

Stellantis is slashing white-collar and factory jobs

In August, the owner of Jeep and Dodge announced it is cutting 2,450 factory workers from its Warren Truck assembly plant outside Detroit.

The layoffs come because the company is ending production of the Ram 1500 Classic truck, Stellantis said. These factory cuts came after white-collar jobs were axed earlier this year.

On March 22, the company said it would lay off employees on its engineering, technology, and software teams in an effort to cut costs, CNBC reported .

Stellantis announced plans for another round of layoffs on July 30, according to Bloomberg. The company is offering voluntary buyouts to non-unionized US employees to "assist those interested in pursuing other career options or retirement," Stellantis said in a message seen by Bloomberg.

The job cuts, the total number of which remains unknown, come after a difficult first half of the year , with unit sales sinking by 16% in the US.

Sonos laid off about 6% of its workforce.

The audio equipment company said it slashed roughly 100 jobs in August. The layoffs significantly targeted its marketing division, The Verge reported.

CEO Patrick Spence said in a statement to BI that the company is now focusing on departing employees and "ensuring they have the support they need."

"This action was a difficult, but necessary, measure to ensure continued, meaningful investment in Sonos' product roadmap while setting Sonos up for long term success," Spence said.

Sonos is also reducing some of its customer support offices and will close one in Amsterdam later this year, according to The Verge.

The company previously cut around 7% of its workforce in June 2023, a month after it announced a 24% revenue drop in the second quarter compared to the previous year.

Cisco announced two rounds of layoffs this year

In February, networking company Cisco announced it was slashing 5% of its workforce, upward of 4,000 jobs, Bloomberg reported.

The company said it was restructuring after an industry-wide pullback in corporate tech spending — which execs said they expect to continue through the first half of the year.

On August 14, in a filing, Cisco said it would further reduce its global workforce by 7% amid sales and revenue declines. Reuters reported earlier that the company was slashing around 4,000 jobs as it shifted attention to cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.

Per its latest annual filing, Cisco had about 85,000 employees as of July 2023.

General Motors laid off more than 1,000 workers.

Car company General Motors, which is behind brands like GMC and Chevrolet, laid off more than 1,000 workers, or 1.3% of its workforce, multiple outlets reported August 19.

The layoffs primarily come from GM's software and services business, which it had bulked up over the past few years as it attempts to make its cars more advanced with more connectivity options and driver-assist technologies. Last year, the company brought on two former Apple executives to run the unit.

"As we build GM's future, we must simplify for speed and excellence, make bold choices, and prioritize the investments that will have the greatest impact," a General Motors spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal .

GoPro is laying off nearly 140 employees

Long-troubled GoPro is laying off 15% of its 925 current employees, the company said in a filing on Monday.

The action sports camera maker reported a net loss of nearly $48 million in the quarter that ended in June, adding to a streak of consecutive losses.

The company laid off 4% of its staff in March.

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Personnel Management Business Plan Example
Need real financials. We recommend using LivePlan as the easiest way to create automatic financials for your own business plan. Create your own business plan. Download This Plan. Explore a real-world personnel management business plan example and download a free template with this information to start writing your own business plan.
Personnel Section of a Business Plan
The Personnel Section of a Business Plan Explained. One of the key sections of a Business Plan is the section that describes the plan to grow or scale the business. This often involves hiring staff and staff often represent the single largest ongoing expense that a company will have. As such, it is important to plan exactly who will be hired ...
5 Steps to Create a Perfect Personnel Plan to Pitch to Investors
Using AI and step-by-step instructions. Create Your Plan. Secure funding. Validate ideas. Build a strategy. 2. Describe your organizational structure. The organizational structure of your company is frequently represented as an "org chart" that shows who reports to whom and who is responsible for what.
Creating a Personnel Plan for Your Business
A personnel plan is a document that outlines an organization's staffing needs, goals, and strategies for managing its workforce. Whether taken upon yourself or delegated to a trusted manager, this is essential for business. It is a key component of human resource management and provides a roadmap for the recruitment, selection, training ...
How to write the personnel plan section of your business plan?
The key objectives of the personnel plan subsection of your business plan is to communicate to investors, lenders and strategic partners: Your business's staffing requirements, objectives, and strategies for effectively managing its workforce. How your business intends to attract and hire the necessary staff to accomplish the goals outlined in ...
Guide To Developing A Personnel Plan
A Personnel Plan is a document that details an organization's staffing needs, goals, and workforce management practices. It is an essential component of human resource management and serves as a road map for employee recruitment, selection, training, development, retention, and management. A Personnel Plan is an essential component of any ...
Create a Personal Business Plan That You'll Really Use
Get All Access for $5/mo. Create a Personal Business Plan That You'll Really Use Develop a customized tool that will serve to focus you on your most important objectives. Write it in user-friendly ...
Personnel Management Business Plan: the Ultimate Guide for 2024
It should analyze your current practices, propose improvements, and detail specific strategies. In this guide, I'll provide an overview of how to write a personnel management business plan in 2023 and offer tips and examples. Why is a Personnel Management Business Plan Important? A well-designed personnel management plan is crucial for any ...
Personnel Management Business Plan
Follow these tips to quickly develop a working business plan from this sample. 1. Don't worry about finding an exact match. We have over 550 sample business plan templates. So, make sure the plan is a close match, but don't get hung up on the details. Your business is unique and will differ from any example or template you come across.
Personnel plan: Elements for business success
The Secrets of a Great Personnel Plan. Investing in human resources (HR) is a key element of healthy personnel planning and strategy. A hallmark of effective leadership is efficient HR which means hiring employees in a cost-effective manner and mostly when needed. Your business plan should always include an informative and up-to-date personnel ...
How to Write the Management Team Section of a Business Plan
Your management team plan has 3 goals: To prove to you that you have the right team to execute on the opportunity you have defined, and if not, to identify who you must hire to round out your current team. To convince lenders and investors (e.g., angel investors, venture capitalists) to fund your company (if needed)
Management and Human Resources Business Plans
A business plan should include plans for your company's management and human resources departments. Learn what each section should include and how to write them. ... Highlight the roles of each member of your team, and any particular areas of strength or deficiency in your personnel lineup. For example, your HR team may be strong in compliance ...
How to Write the Management Section of a Business Plan
A business plan provides a road map showing your company's goals and how you'll achieve them. The five sections of a business plan are as follows: The market analysis outlines the demand for your product or service. The competitive analysis section shows your competition's strengths and weaknesses and your strategy for gaining market share.
Business Plan Workforce and Support Personnel
Recruiting personnel examples in your business plan. You've identified the positions you'll need both to start your business and to grow it. Now, describe your strategy for how you're going to land qualified candidates. Show potential lenders and investors that you know how to reach the people who are going to help you succeed.
Simple Business Plan Template (2024)
Krista Fabregas is a seasoned eCommerce and online content pro sharing more than 20 years of hands-on know-how with those looking to launch and grow tech-forward businesses.
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The business model canvas is a one-page template designed to demystify the business planning process. It removes the need for a traditional, copy-heavy business plan, in favor of a single-page outline that can help you and outside parties better explore your business idea. The structure ditches a linear format in favor of a cell-based template.
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Marketing plan: A strategic outline of how you plan to market and promote your business before, during, and after your company launches into the market. Logistics and operations plan: An explanation of the systems, processes, and tools that are needed to run your business in the background. Financial plan: A map of your short-term (and even ...
How to Write a Business Plan (Tips, Templates, Examples)
1. Executive Summary. While your executive summary is the first page of your business plan, it's the section you'll write last. That's because it summarizes your entire business plan into a succinct one-pager. Begin with an executive summary that introduces the reader to your business and gives them an overview of what's inside the ...
How To Write A Business Plan (2024 Guide)
Describe Your Services or Products. The business plan should have a section that explains the services or products that you're offering. This is the part where you can also describe how they fit ...
Personnel Plan excel template for free
This template calculates the monthly and yearly expenses associated with each role using built-in formula. Additionally, you can also add an organizational chart to provide a visual overview of the company's structure. Personnel Plan. A personnel plan is a critical part of your business plan and financial forecast. In addition to this helping ...
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10 Simple Tips to Write a Successful Business Plan
In the new book "Write Your Own Business Plan," business expert Eric Butow takes the anxiety and confusion out of planning and offers an easy-to-follow roadmap to success. ... For example, a 10 ...
How to Write a Business Plan: Guide + Examples
Most business plans also include financial forecasts for the future. These set sales goals, budget for expenses, and predict profits and cash flow. A good business plan is much more than just a document that you write once and forget about. It's also a guide that helps you outline and achieve your goals. After completing your plan, you can ...
Top 10 Employee Development Plan Examples to Help Your Team Grow
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Right to disconnect
the employee's role in the business and level of responsibility; the employee's personal circumstances, including family or caring responsibilities. ... Example: Employee's personal circumstances make out of hours contact unreasonable. Selim is a consultant and is working on a major project for a client. Selim has 2 young children.
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The Harris campaign has fully endorsed a tax plan put forth by President Biden's administration. This plan proposes to raise revenues by around $5 trillion, in part by levying taxes on unrealized capital gains for households worth more than $100 million. This is known as a wealth tax, and it has become an increasingly debated topic in recent ...
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How Do You Draft the Personnel Section of the Business Plan? The Personnel Section of a Business Plan Explained.

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How to Create an Investor-Ready Personnel Plan and Forecast Employee Costs

What to include in the personnel section of your business plan

1. Describe your team

Create a professional business plan

2. Describe your organizational structure

3. Explain the gaps

4. List your advisors, consultants, and board members

5. Forecast your personnel costs

Direct and indirect labor expenses

Burden rate and employee-related expenses

Do you need a personnel plan if you have no employees?

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Noah Parsons

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How to Create a Personnel Plan for Investors

What is a personnel plan?

What to include in the personnel section of your business plan

Who is your management team?

What is the organizational structure?

What are your staffing needs?

What will recruitment and training look like?

What will the compensations and benefits be?

Outline the Human Resources policies

Does a business plan need personnel planning if I have no staff?

Is there an easy way to forecast a personnel plan?

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The Secrets of a Great Personnel Plan

What is a personnel plan?

Key elements of a personnel plan

Job description

Organizational chart and type of hiring

Remuneration (salary amount and assumptions)

Time of recruitment

Incorporate key personnel into the business plan

Team dynamics

Organizational structure

Gaps and stumbling blocks

The fine print

Personnel improvement

Identify skills or performance gaps

Develop action plans

Time Tracking

How to Write the Management Team Section of a Business Plan + Examples

What is a Management Team Business Plan?

Why is the Management Team Section of a Business Plan Important?

What to Include in Your Management Team Section

Management Team Members

Management Team Gaps

Management Team Business Plan Example

Key Team Members

How to Finish Your Business Plan in 1 Day!

OR, Let Us Develop Your Plan For You

Other Resources for Writing Your Business Plan

Other Helpful Business Plan Articles & Templates

How To Write the Management Section of a Business Plan

Ownership Structure

Key Takeaways